Hydra lullaby: Origin Story
by MissCar
Summary: Everyone has an origin story. For some of our heroes (and anti-villains), Hydra played a bigger role than anyone imagined. So how exactly do top-secret genetic research programs, illegally procured 'gifted' DNA, and Diviners figure in their master plan? Hydra is not just evil, it is opportunistic. Sequel to Tony Stark is Not a Relationship Expert. T/S, M/C and Fitz?
1. The Road to Hell

Title: Hydra lullaby: Origin Story

Summary: Everyone has an origin story. You may think you know what it is, but you don't. For some of our heroes (and anti-villains), Hydra played a bigger role than anyone imagined. So how exactly do top-secret infertility and genetic research programs, illegally procured 'gifted' DNA, and Diviners figure in their master plan? Hydra is not just evil, it is opportunistic.

This is part four of the series In a World Like This and a direct follow-up to Tony Stark Is Not a Relationship Expert.

Canon compliancy: The story is about 90% cannon compliant for the MCU up to episode 22 of AOS (including Winter Soldier), then tracks close to the MCU up to episode 32 of AOS except certain events have been changed to prevent certain other actions from happening like a Civil War, the complete implosion of Fitzsimmons (but they will have some rough patches in this story), and a certain specialist's death.

There will be other differences such as the timing of Iron Man 3, the identity of Melinda May's ex-husband, and the identity of the people who contributed to Trip's DNA. If 'Skye' can have a completely different mom in the MCU than in 616 for plot reasons, then I can give Trip different DNA contributors in my universe for my own plot reasons. Also in grand MCU tradition, I am giving Maria Stark a better or at least expanded back story. Seriously, I found only three lines on her in the Marvel wiki. That's not right.

Spoiler warning: This story will contain spoilers for Agent Carter and future episodes of AOS and may contain Avengers 2 spoilers, but those will be mixed with other ideas from my imagination. There could also be accidental spoilers for Phase 3 in here because I'm trying to avoid Civil War, which ironically was my plan even before they announced the movie. Whether I'm successful, we will have to see. I'm willing to use anything that will help me better develop the characters in the story.

Relationships: Tony/Steve, May/Coulson, Tony & Pepper, Fitzsimmons (I'm leaning towards heterosexual life partners), Fitz/Mack (maybe more than platonic), Tony & Coulson, Steve/May (their relationship is mostly platonic now, but they slept together previously and Tony is trying really hard to arrange a birthday four-way), Trip & Skye (this relationship is complicated) and various background relationships past and present such as Howard & Peggy, Trip/Mack, Coulson/Hawkeye, Huntingbird, Hand/Isabel, and one-sided SkyeWard along with tons of other relationships.

A lot of these relationships will be straddling the fence between platonic and non-platonic.

Rated M for language, Tony being Tony, Hydra being evil, Ward having issues, sexual content, and violence.

There will also be discussions of extreme infertility issues including miscarriages and the death of a newborn.

Other warnings: This story is written by a dyslexic person using voice recognition software. Prone to crazy voice recognition errors and changing tenses without even realizing it. My beta tries her best, so proceed with compassion.

Disclaimer: Disney owns everything including ABC and Marvel. This is just a therapy exercise for entertainment purposes and reviews.

Proofread by Grayson Steele

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><p><strong>Previously on In a World Like This:<strong>

Nick Fury being the chess grandmaster that he is realized that the Avengers Initiative would completely fall apart if Tony and Steve did not get over themselves and learn to work through their issues. To keep May from swallowing her gun (she didn't know that Coulson was in TAHITI yet), Fury assigned her to keep those two idiots from killing each other and bringing the rest of the Avengers down with them, off the books of course.

She does such a good job that Tony and Steve ended up sleeping together, before Tony and Pepper officially decided to just be friends again. To complicate it even further, they end up sleeping together the week SHIELD falls apart.

Instead of relying on her mother's contacts, May goes to Stark directly to find Maria Hill to get Phil the help that he needs and ends up telling Stark that Coulson is alive. A side benefit of this process is that May gets Steve and Tony back together. She is also manipulated by Tony into admitting that she is in love with Phil and eventually about the writing on the wall, the literal writing on the wall. Tony crashes the Playground and brings Steve along with a totally rebuilt Lola, a trunk full of spy gear, and much-needed funding.

While at the Playground certain secrets are uncovered including the fact that Tony slept with Fitz's mom about nine months before he was born and the fact that Trip was conceived when his mother was kidnapped by Hydra, not that anybody knew it was Hydra at the time. The entire incident may have been used to place Alexander Pierce in charge of SHIELD. They are still not sure about that yet. During his visit to the Playground, Tony also convinces Coulson to give a relationship with May a chance as well as poaches Simmons for his new lab. And then Fitz wakes up.

If you would like to know more, check out the three stories that precede this. However, the information above should keep you from getting lost in this story.

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><p><strong>Prologue: The Road to Hell<strong>

January 1970

The smell of expensive alcohol permeates the space. That seems logical considering the several empty bottles that surround Howard. She should be thankful he's in his office down here instead of his lab. She should also be thankful that he's drinking alone and didn't invite any of his special friends that everyone including Maria knew about. (Maria actually joined Howard most of the time. Peggy was in no place to judge considering she and her husband had a mutual ex-boyfriend, a dead mutual ex-boyfriend that they cared about so much that they are planning to name their unborn child after him.)

Peggy wondered if Jarvis or anyone else bothered to clean in here. Jarvis was the best person to deal with Howard when he was like this. Actually, he was the only one who was willing to which might explain the generous salary that Stark paid him. Right now though, Jarvis was at the Long Island house with Maria. She couldn't be left alone since her baby girl, Natasha, did not survive being born two months prematurely. The situation was tragic.

Howard should be with her. They should be mourning their daughter together. Instead he's not even in New York but in Arlington in his office buried under bottles, (but thankfully not women). She was hoping to find him buried in his work, that would've been preferable, not this. She hated Howard when he was drunk. He was a dreadful human being when intoxicated. With each miscarriage and failed search in the Arctic, a drunk Howard appeared and for increasing periods of time. All semblance of happiness drained out of him completely when alcohol entered his system.

The SHIELD Deputy Director's mission was simple: nurse Howard out of his drunken stupor and drag him back to Long Island to deal with his life, in particular his wife. Peggy chose this particular mission because she felt uncomfortable being around Maria. The two women were supposed to give birth within days of each other. Now, however, Maria's baby was buried in the Rose Garden of the Long Island estate while she was still heavily pregnant with her third child.

Life wasn't fair. She is well acquainted with this reality. The latest insight to this truth is that no matter how much she wanted to be there for Maria, Jarvis was better suited to console right now and she was better suited to kick Howard's arse back to Long Island.

Peggy was no stranger to survivor's guilt, but this situation hit her hard. Of the two, Peggy should've been the one to lose her baby. She was a 50-year-old woman with a high stress career who somehow managed to get pregnant without actually trying. Between her and Gabe, they already have four children. Sure, they would have loved to have had a child together, but it seemed too late by the time they got married. Then their miracle happened.

In contrast, Maria was nearly a decade and a half younger and had been actively trying to get pregnant since she married Howard. Peggy knew they had visited every fertility specialist on the East Coast, a few of whom are now employed by SHIELD in the 'genetic research' department.

Sometimes Peggy thinks the whole purpose of that marriage was to produce an heir to the Stark Empire and for Maria to get more money for her various charitable endeavors. Not many people including Peggy understood why the notorious Playboy married a New York social worker and civil rights activist, at least not at first. She prudently bit her tongue because she was well aware that Howard had hidden depths and so did Maria. There was a type of love between the two, maybe not a conventional love, but it was there. Besides Peggy wasn't sure if any other woman could deal with Howard on a regular basis. They were old friends and some days Peggy wanted to strangle the man.

In the span of their seven year marriage, the Starks had three miscarriages before the loss of Natasha. This time they concealed Maria's pregnancy from the press. It wasn't that hard to do when you're the head of a secret spy organization. It was amazing what the lab could come up with to make a woman not look pregnant. Peggy had been making very good use of a particular coat around Maria in the last few days. She did not want to flaunt her pregnancy around her grieving friend.

Thankfully, Jarvis suggested that she procure Mr. Stark and she jumped at the chance to get out of there. Despite the camouflage offered by the special coat, they both knew she was still pregnant. Maria wasn't as resilient as Peggy. The younger woman wasn't able to deal with loss the way Peggy could. Peggy felt Maria's anger and resentment every time they were together.

This is why she was the one to come down to DC to drag Howard back. Maria needed her husband and Peggy Carter-Jones would not let him run away this time especially when he was hiding inside a bottle.

She struggles with her temper as she approaches the unconscious man. How dare he be drinking himself into a stupor when Maria had been crying for days? However, her anger dissipates when she notices the blanket in his hands. The name Natasha delicately embroidered on the front with teddy bears surrounding it. The image is heartbreaking.

"What am I going to do with you Howard?" She mumbles out loud as she removes the half-empty glass from his fingers. If he doesn't rouse at that movement, she would check his pulse to see if he had succumbed to alcohol poisoning. She'd heard there was a betting pool amongst the agents on when their leader would finally drink himself to death.

"Jarvis, I told you I wasn't to be disturbed." Peggy was sure that was the case considering the door was bolted. However, simple locks like that were no deterrent for his Deputy Director.

"Jarvis is still on Long Island. It's Peggy." She said gently.

"Did you bring Marcy and Jamie?" Of course, Howard would ask about her daughters. Howard adored her kids. She wasn't exactly happy about him teaching both girls how to shoot, however. Although, she decided a long time ago that the people in her life would need to know who she really was in order to protect themselves.

"Jamie and Marcy are still in school right now, in New York." _And I wouldn't let them anywhere near their Uncle Howard when he's this drunk._

"Would you like a drink?" Howard asked only slightly slurring his words as he got up to go the bar which he somehow managed to do without tripping.

"Unless you have water, no." She placed her hand subconsciously on her stomach, but Howard noticed. She caught the look of anguish in his eyes even though it only lasted for a second. She felt guilty again.

"Right, you can't. Research says alcohol is not good for the baby." He said as he poured himself a rather healthy portion of scotch.

"That's the last thing you need right now Howard." She walks over and takes the glass from him. "Alcohol doesn't help with something like this. Talk to me. We've known each other for nearly 30 years."

"Maybe it doesn't help, but it makes everything else hurt less." He responds by reclaiming the glass and proceeds to drain its' entire contents in one swallow.

'_That's one of your biggest problems Howard.'_ She doesn't say that out loud. She could. They've been friends that long, but she doesn't. Not when he's like this. She just lets him drink because he's never going to tell her what's really going on. Instead she walks over to the chair he just vacated and grabs the still open notebook now laying on top of Natasha's blanket. She hopes there will be some clue as to what's going on in his head in his journal.

"What are you working on Howard?" It seemed like a neutral question. It isn't. It never is.

"I'm going to build a bigger, better baby." For one wild moment, she wonders if he's talking about an actual baby. He uses the term baby to refer to a lot of his inventions including the bad ones. "He's going to be my greatest creation. This one's not -cannot die on me." A single tear rolls down her cheek despite her best efforts not to break down at that moment.

Through blurry eyes she looks over his notes only to realize he is actually trying to create a better baby - a real flesh and blood child. It should not surprise Peggy at all that he is approaching this the same way he does any other invention or failed project. It is heartbreaking though to see page after page of analysis as to why Maria went into labor early and why Natasha did not survive followed by even more detailed notes on how to keep it from happening again.

For the first time, she notices the books piled on the desk. None of them are about weapons engineering or cloaking technology which is something he's been personally working on for the last year to perfect. Instead, Howard was surrounded by books and classified SHIELD research papers on genetics and reproduction. Was his notebook more than just a means for him to deal with his daughter's death? Was he planning to take this beyond the hypothetical? It was Howard after all. The fact that there were budgetary numbers in these plans made that seem highly probable in her mind.

"Howard, I know you're upset, but you can't use SHIELD resources to create babies in a test tube or whatever you're planning. A baby is not another thing for you to invent. You can't treat this like another experiment." She said in a gentle, but stern way.

"That's where you're wrong. And you only say that because you have four healthy children with one more on the way." He spat out bitterly.

"Two of which are not even mine biologically, but I love Jamie and Desiree as if they were. You could adopt. Maria works with so many children who could use a good home." Despite being married to one of the richest individuals in the country, Maria kept working. She just had more resources now. The Maria Stark Foundation supplemented several group homes for displaced children in the New York area.

"The board wouldn't like it. They want another 'golden goose' to follow me." He actually made finger quotes when saying the word 'golden goose'. Peggy wondered which one of his business partners would actually refer to a child as a 'golden goose'. "Besides Maria wants a baby. I promised her a baby. I owe her that much for putting up with me. I've created so much death I need to create a life." And there it was. The real reason why Howard drank so much - guilt.

"I'm surrounded by the most brilliant scientists in the world. We could do this. We could help people, help Maria. That's what we are supposed to do. Will you help me?"

"Of course, Howard." Because what else could she say.

"Gabe is outside." She placed an arm around him. "You don't need to stay here. We can go back to New York." _And hopefully you'll be sober enough to deal with Maria by the time we get there and not give her false hope by mentioning making her a baby in your lab._

"Can I see Marcy?"

"Not like this Howard. Things will be better once you're sobered up." She just wasn't sure when that would actually happen.

"I doubt that."

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><p>She should know by this point in their relationship that when Howard Stark gets an idea in his head he doesn't give up. It's why he still searches the Arctic every summer for Steve's plane; he's convinced that Steve's still alive. It only stands to reason that he would do everything in his power to get Maria the baby that she wants. She wonders exactly how much of his own money he allocated to SHIELD's fertility research and how much government funding they got by passing it off as the next Super Soldier project.<p>

But his plan worked. It only took 2 ½ years for Anthony Stark to come into the world via a surrogate and a process Howard referred to as in vitro fertilization. It became one of the duties of the new director of SHIELD, Margaret Carter-Jones, to cover it up. As far as the rest of the world knows, Anthony Stark was born to Howard and Maria Stark at 3:45 AM on May 29, 1972*. Maybe using SHIELD resources so that the couple could have a biological child was inappropriate, but the first time she saw Maria hold her son Peggy knew it was the right thing to do.

The details of Howard's latest 'project' had the highest clearance within SHIELD. Only a select few would ever know how special Anthony really is.

To be continued.

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><p>I'm literally working on the next chapter right now. Remember, your reviews help me write faster. Also those of you reading this on what category should I put the story under? I don't want to put it in the crossover category because a lot of people don't look there. So Avengers or Agents of SHIELD? I'm going with AOS right now but I'm not sure.<p>

I found conflicting dates for Tony's year of birth online. I swore I saw 1972 when I looked this up last June but several of those places are now saying 1970 and a few can't even agree on the date. However, since I've already set up the timeline with 1972 in mind that's the year I'm staying with. Besides, Natasha Stark's existence in my universe may explain this discrepancy.


	2. Sleepless in Arlington

Thank you to everybody who left reviews, kudos, or added my story to your alerts. (Considering I will be posting chapters for this story as soon as I get them back from my fabulous beta, subscribing to the story may be a good idea.) Every little bit keeps me writing.

This chapter and the next were originally one chapter. I realized that a 12,000 word chapter would be difficult on all of us, so I split the chapter in half.

A quick note about pairings. I love both Fitzsimmons and Mack/Fitz, so I'm not entirely sure which way the story is going to go in that regard. I may keep it all platonic, I may choose sides, or may take a third option. If you read my story Take a Third Option you know I do write polyandry stories.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Sleepless in Arlington<strong>

Late June 2014

Jemma hates the fact that she's still not sleeping very well even though Fitz was now out of the coma if not back to his old self, not completely. Those first few nights she slept in his room, but now she doesn't. She suspects that Fitz doesn't want her there. His throwing the new stuffed monkey she'd bought him at her seems an obvious sign of that. She knows he blames her for being trapped in himself. She blames herself for the damage done to his brain. When he first woke up, he couldn't talk at all and that was her fault.

Now after three weeks of working with the best specialist Dr. Stark (she still calls him that even to herself because she doesn't feel comfortable calling him Tony) could find, Fitz was starting to regain his words. He was still at the hospital, albeit in the rehab center, but the fact he was there at all was her fault. His feelings for her doomed him and she is positive he regrets that now. She feels so horrible and confused inside. She doesn't know how to even talk to him anymore. Everything hurts and she's miserable.

Her nightmares about being at the bottom of the ocean have returned. She's been dreaming about their being trapped in that container and not figuring out a way out. There were ones where Fitz didn't even bother creating the distress signal because he knew no one would be monitoring. Even worse were the dreams about making it up to the surface with a dying Fitz in her arms and Fury not being there. Most nights she would wake up screaming and covered in a cold sweat.

She had these dreams at the Playground before Fitz woke up. They might have even been worse. But if she woke up screaming in the middle of the night at the Playground, she would find herself quickly wrapped in Skye's embrace as she cried herself back to sleep. Here the rooms were soundproof and only JARVIS would be alerted to her nightmares and she had sworn the AI to secrecy. She wasn't certain if anyone other than JARVIS would actually care if they did know. And as remarkable as he is, the AI doesn't truly count even if he does listen to her recount the dreams.

Skye wasn't talking to her. Her friend was angry that she had abandoned the team in the middle of the night. She had emailed Skye a few times via secure channels, but has not received a single reply.

Trip was more understanding, but she felt too embarrassed to talk to him now. It was a good thing she hadn't known that he was former Director Carter's grandson otherwise she would have embarrassed herself even more. He probably snickered behind her back every time she gushed about the woman.

Why did she think he was interested in her? (Even when she was under the impression he was heterosexual.) Why would anybody be interested in her? Other than her two PhDs there wasn't anything exceptional about her. She wasn't anywhere near as attractive as Skye, May or Trip. She could see why Fitz would be interested in them or even the traitorous bastard, well, before they knew what he was capable of doing and that he only cared for himself and John Garrett.

Fitz liking her in a non-platonic way didn't make sense. She doesn't know how it happened. She certainly wasn't expecting it. She still doesn't know how she feels except that it wouldn't be wise to risk their friendship for something that might not work. She's been playing intermediary for Dr. Stark and Ms. Potts for the last three weeks. It's become very obvious to her how difficult it is to get back a deep friendship after a romantic relationship has fallen apart.

But what does it matter now that their relationship was already in tatters? Fitz must surely hate her now because she hates herself. He can't even look at her.

Agent May and Director Coulson contact her occasionally, but most of those calls were to inquire about Fitz's health or related to her GH 325 research. This is her major project for Stark (and the main reason why she was still working in his private lab in DC). Their calls were necessarily infrequent because they did not want to give away the location of the Playground. Stark's lawyers have successfully cleared most of the team members, but there was Hydra to consider. It would be foolish to think that they were all destroyed after the raid on Cybertek. Besides, she didn't have the relationship with either of them to where she could talk about her distinct belief that Fitz hates her now or that she can't sleep without finding herself in that medical pod in the Gulf of Mexico.

Even though it is barely after midnight, she decides to forego sleep for the moment at least and heads down to the kitchen. Cooking relaxes her and her boss really does have a lovely kitchen. It is much better than the one on the Bus or at the Playground and it always stocked with produce from the several farmers markets around. She makes a sandwich platter and a vegetable tray because she knows there will be dozens of people in and out of the mansion tomorrow. There always is but it seems even busier since they're planning Captain Roger's- Steve's birthday party. (He's told her at least 50 times to call him Steve, but she's still getting used to calling her idol's boyfriend by his first name.)

Steve initially objected to the party until Dr. Stark- Tony pointed out that the event was to cement May and Coulson's cover as the department heads of the new Stark Industries Humanitarian, International Education, and Lifesaving Division. This is not to be confused with Stark Industries International Security Division which will still be in charge of the Avengers Initiative as soon as former Agent Natasha Romanoff could be around Stark without the urge to throw a knife at him. She wished she were exaggerating, but things are quite tense.

According to JARVIS, Ms. Romanoff blames Stark for the demise of his relationship with Ms. Potts despite the fact that Ms. Potts does not. It's all very tenuous with Captain Rogers trying to make peace between the two which is quite difficult with the former agent staying off the grid due to Hydra.

With that task complete, Jemma is still restless and not at all hungry. She grabs one of the expensive beers from the refrigerator and sat down at her computer. Maybe if she went over Stark's specs for the revised HENRY program she would eventually get tired. Before everything fell apart, Fitz was trying to create an AI with a hologram monkey interface; unfortunately most of his research was destroyed when old SHIELD was. Dr. Stark was trying to revive the program to give Fitz something to focus on besides his physical progress.

If looking over Stark's notes did not help, she could always continue her party planning (why did she mention that she had told her parents she was a corporate party planner) or her research on GH 325. The equipment here was much better than the stuff at the Playground. She hopes she doesn't fall asleep on her laptop again. And she really hopes she doesn't wake up to the sight of her boss walking into the kitchen naked. Once was quite sufficient, thank you.

She wanted to tell Skye about that but she couldn't because the hacker was still so angry with her. She actually composed an email about it before realizing she couldn't send the message for various reasons.

Remarkably, she was asleep by the time her boss made his way fully clothed to the kitchen an hour later. Unfortunately, she had fallen asleep on her laptop again.

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><p>"You're supposed to be sleeping Tony." Pepper said as she mentally calculated the time difference between Tokyo and Arlington. She was currently in Japan convincing various partners that Stark Industries was in no way affiliated with any terrorist organization despite the fact that certain individuals i.e. Senator Christopher Ward was trying to paint Howard Stark as the founder of one. The meetings were going as well as could be expected, which meant they were not going well at all.<p>

"It's only 2:34 AM. You know me and sleep schedules." Tony joked. Honestly, she shouldn't be surprised at all by his calling her in the middle of the night his time.

"You don't have one." She sighed. This wasn't supposed to be her problem anymore. She was neither Tony's assistant nor girlfriend at the moment, which is the entire reason why she is sending Steve an "It's 2:34 AM, do you know where your boyfriend is?' text message. This was his problem now.

"I just…"

"Nightmares?" And yet she doesn't hang up because she is still his friend and friends help each other deal with their nightmares at 2:34 in the morning. Actually, she's just happy that he's talking to her. She didn't think they would still have these conversations not after things deteriorated so rapidly after the Thanksgiving incident. Is it wrong to think that breaking up was the best thing for their relationship? Their ability to communicate with one another has improved dramatically since they ended things in April.

"Something like that. I was dreaming about fighting with Ste…" And yet he stops at mention of Steve and she's once again reminded that things are not like they were before they started sleeping together. But was that a consequence of being together in the first place or of not ending things before their core relationship was damaged? She doesn't have an answer for that question.

"You know we agreed that it's okay for you to mention your boyfriend. At least Steve is better than anybody I had to show out the next morning." Also after being together for almost 2 months Steve has lasted longer than most of Tony's pre-Afghanistan 'relationships'. Actually, it was longer than that if you counted the overlap time. Part of her feels like Tony and Steve had been dating for at least the last year, maybe even since the disastrous events of Christmas 2012.

"I'm trying to be polite." Tony joked and it was a bit unsettling.

"Tony, you're never polite." If he was Pepper wouldn't have the PR department on speed dial. She's just hoping that he doesn't call Senator Ward a prick on Twitter anytime soon. Why did the PR department think it was a good idea to let Tony have a Twitter account?

"I try for you."

"I don't want you to be anything other than you." Pepper knew they were talking about something entirely different now.

"Yes, you did." There was a touch of bitterness in his voice.

'I was wrong.' She thought to herself.

"So you had a nightmare about fighting with Steve?" She asked instead.

"Not just arguing, but physically fighting like we were going to kill each other. We managed to tear the entire superhero community apart." Tony explained and she heard genuine fear in his voice.

"Yes, all six of you." She shakes her head. Although this was better than nightmares about wormholes and him being back in Afghanistan.

"There were a lot more of us in the dream. It just got worse and weirder from there. For example, there was this strange lullaby version of 'Back in Black' playing in the background and people with Hydra lanyards kept handing me children. Then my dad was having tea with a miniature version of Marcy and Stephanie. Also Antoine is there and suddenly an adult version of Stephanie is taking him to his first day of school which suddenly switches to me taking a little Leo to school except I have no idea what he looked like at four because I wasn't there. Then we get attacked by Hydra agents and I don't have the armor and Steve's not there because Steve is still frozen. Fortunately, I managed to wake up just as Leo gets blown to pieces with the helicarrier that I inadvertently designed."

She doesn't even know where to begin analyzing that dream. Although part of her wants to start with the fact that she was not in it. "Also I was dressed like Howard the entire time." Correction, his very evident daddy issues were probably the most pressing. Pepper's known for a very long time that Tony's biggest fear was becoming Howard.

"Are you taking your medication? Better question, are you taking drugs other than your medication?" Because she can't decide what's harder to deal with a stoned out of his mind Tony or a Tony on the verge of another nervous breakdown. She doesn't want either to happen when she's in Japan.

"I don't think I've done anything harder than marijuana since Afghanistan unless it was prescribed to me and even then the marijuana was for anxiety. Yes, I have been taking my medication and I haven't been chasing it down with scotch. By the way, I'm going to need a new therapist. I gave Suarez to Director Agent. I think they need her more."

Her response is to sigh because she disagrees about the therapist thing. The end of their romantic relationship, the transition in his relationship with Steve, the fact that his technology was being co-opted by terrorists again, and Leo's existence were all reasons why Tony needed professional help.

She wonders if Tony realizes that his entire dream is really about Leo otherwise known as the one paternity suit that might actually turn out to be true. Maria, her so-called friend, said that it was true, but Pepper wanted independent verification because she doesn't trust Maria Hill at all right now. She's not even sure if they are friends anymore. Not telling her about Phil is something she understands, it was for the man's protection. Not telling her that Tony had a son is nearly unforgivable. She claimed it was a matter of national security which made no sense. Why was the fact that Tony fathered a child a state secret in the first place? What if Tony actually died without ever knowing that he had a child or vice versa? How cruel. It had been a near thing on both of their sides.

During her days as Tony's assistant, she always thought something like this was going to happen. The SI legal team had a contingency plan for paternity suits because they happened so often. Pepper just wasn't expecting the reality to be an almost 27-year-old recovering from brain damage caused by being dumped in the ocean by a Hydra agent.

"I can't be held responsible for my subconscious." Tony told her defensively bringing her back to the conversation at hand.

"I can hold you responsible when your subconscious is obviously worried about the outcome of a certain paternity test. Have you received the results of the DNA test from Dr. Triplett yet? Is Leo actually your son?" It's been nearly 3 weeks. Even normal commercial tests would not have taken this long. Tony should have a non-SHIELD answer by now.

"She has the results, but she won't tell me over the phone and I haven't been by to see her." That makes absolute sense because Tony tends to avoid difficult things, so of course he's going to delay seeing Dr. Triplett at all cost.

"Tony!" She is exasperated.

"I've been busy." Pepper almost laughed at that excuse. She knew Tony. That was his favorite line for when he was avoiding something. The man locked himself in his workshop for a week after he slept with Steve that first time in order to avoid her. The question was what was he avoiding this time? Was he afraid that Leo was his son? Considering the amount of money he was spending on flying in various experts in to work with the young scientist, she very much doubted that was the case.

"Tony you can't keep putting this off. I was perfectly willing to come to DC if you needed moral support. The trip to Tokyo could've waited a couple of days." Or she could've called Rhodey to deal with Tony and his possible teenage love child. The whole point of Tony moving to DC temporarily was so they could get some emotional distance from one another. Running to DC to help Tony deal with this wouldn't be that.

"No, it really couldn't. People are panicking right now and it's not an excuse. I've been really busy and so has Stephanie." She scoffs.

"Doing what?"

"Let's see not calling Senator Ward a prick on Twitter, setting up Stark Industries' Humanitarian, International Education, and Lifesaving Division, and renovating the formally secret government offices under my house. I'm thinking of giving you your own floor." Of course he's giving Pepper her own floor. "I'm also going through Howard's personal files which lived up to its potential of being unbelievably traumatizing and working on HENRY."

"What is a Henry?" Really she hopes it is not another flying car. Although SI was now working on the plans to rollout arc reactor cars in two years' time so his endeavor was productive (thankfully they both agreed that there were too many bad drivers in the world for flying cars to be mass marketed).

"Assisted communication device for people who have suffered brain damage because of strokes or…" _Being dropped in an ocean by Hydra._ However, neither say that aloud.

"I should put a coffeemaker down here. I miss Dummy." There's classic Tony Stark avoidance again.

"What about your new assistant? I do remember bringing you a lot of coffee." Because it was the only way to get you to do anything.

"I think she is still asleep, but by now she may have realized she was sleeping on top of her laptop in the kitchen again and decided to go back to her actual bed. Does she really believe JARVIS is not telling me about the ocean related nightmares?" A part of Pepper is sure Tony is not joking. "Also she's not that type of assistant. She has two doctorates. She's closer to Bruce than most of the other people helping me out. She gets bonus points for not trying to kill me yet or trying to sleep with Steve."

"You have five PhDs."

"And I never brought you coffee." He joked.

"Tony, I have a meeting in half an hour. Why did you call?" Because they really need to get this conversation on point. Tony is not going to call her without of reason, not now not when their relationship is so tenuous.

"I told you I was going through Howard's diaries and just let me say I really hate the fact that my relationship with Howard was so bad that almost everything I know about him comes from old work papers." She's upset about that too, but she doesn't mention it. "Really, I should know better than to look through Howard's stuff after the great dress up closet incident when I was six. I always find out stuff I don't want to know." She can actually hear Tony shudder on the other end of the line. It was enough to make her wish this was a video call.

"Do I even want to know?"

"Let me just say there's a reason why I'm not into dress-up play and leave it at that."

"Seriously?"

"Honestly, the only time I ever really acted my age as a child was when Stephanie was there. We were playing hide and seek or something and we came across this big closet filled with different outfits including stuff I didn't realize until adulthood were slutty nurse and slutty pirate costumes. So anyway, we decide to play dress-up and eventually got caught in the room by Stephanie's mom and Jarvis." Pepper wonders if Tony is referring to Peggy Carter-Jones specifically as Stephanie's mom so he doesn't have to think about the fact that she is his boyfriend's ex-girlfriend.

"Stephanie's mom started yelling at Howard for letting us play in his 'sexual aid closet' and it just gets worse from there. I really did not need to know that my father liked to put a 'theatrical element' in his sexual encounters ever, but especially not at six." Tony shivered again and Pepper is almost tempted to start laughing.

"I could see how finding out that your parents enjoy dressing up in the bedroom could be traumatic."

"I'm not sure mom was into that sort of stuff, but I'm sure their friends were. Did I ever tell you my parents had a really open marriage that both sides consented to? They both had girlfriends and sometimes they had the same girlfriend. Trista was really nice. I liked her. She made great cookies, better than Jarvis." _This explains so much._

"Anyway, I found out something even more traumatic than Howard's secret kink closet. So it turns out Howard wasn't upset because I was born with a dick. No, he was angry that I could never replace his precious little Natasha. It would've been nice to know why my parents got completely wasted together every January and why there is a gravestone in the Rose Garden at the old Long Island estate."

"The headquarters for the Maria Stark Foundation?" She remembered making several trips there when she was his assistant. The organization did a lot of good work even before Tony's Afghanistan awakening.

"Yes. I now know why the foundation gives so much money to prevent premature birth and SIDS. Actually, I now know why mom's charity work focused on children. It would've been nice if my parents had told me any of this stuff while they were still alive." _Maybe they thought you were too young._ Tony was only 19 when both of his parents were murdered. He was just a baby -a_ baby who had unwittingly produced his own offspring four years earlier._

"Tony." She said his name softly this time. "I've had to deal with too many idiots over the last three days to deal with your rambling right now. Please be clearer."

"Two years before I was born mom gave birth to a little girl named Natasha. She only lived for about three hours. They buried her in the Rose Garden which explains why Howard's will contained specific instructions that I could never sell the Long Island house."

"Oh."

"My response was 'Shit'. It definitely does explain why Mom was so overprotective of me. To this day, I still don't know how dad talked her into boarding school. Then again that did happen right after one of my first almost kidnappings, so who knows. Maybe she wanted me away from all the SHIELD stuff."

"How did you know this?" She asked in shock, not paying attention to any of Tony's other ramblings. "How did you just find this out?" Because Pepper was sure that something like this would've ended up public eventually, if not originally then because of the SHIELD document dump. The public now knew more about the Palladium poisoning incident than she ever wanted them to, including the fact that Nick Fury defied orders to help keep Tony alive.

"I told you I was going through his journals. I was trying to see if there was anything helpful for a couple of projects I'm currently working on. Instead, I find out that SHIELD's cloaking technology was first deployed on my mother's maternity wear in an effort to keep everything out of the press. I mean I knew there were a few miscarriages before I was born. That stuff was public record and the press was extremely nasty about it. I guess they didn't want this out there just in case it went bad again and it turns out their paranoia was well-founded. Should I be worried there's more information on his early research into in vitro fertilization then how he felt about the death of his child? Howard just seemed so detached from everything."

'You built dozens of prototype suits instead of talking to me about your nightmares. You built another suit instead of telling me you were unhappy and wanted to be with Steve.' She bit her tongue waiting to see how he'd respond.

Finally after a few moments of silence she continues, "People deal with grief differently. You're developing adaptive technology for Leo instead of…" _Talking to Stephanie and dealing with this as a grown-up._ However, she wasn't sure how to word that in a way that would not result in Tony ending this phone call.

"Instead of finding out if Leo's my son. You can say it." Apparently Tony was self-aware enough to know that without her pointing it out. This is new.

"I was trying to be polite."

"Don't be. We both know I shouldn't be a father. I always felt like the damage done by the Palladium poisoning was the universe's way of telling me that I shouldn't procreate. We both know I would've ended up being just as bad as Howard." Tony spat out bitterly.

"That's not…"

"Don't say otherwise. You were relieved when you got a negative sign on your home pregnancy test last Thanksgiving. I know you didn't want to raise a kid with me."

Near the end of their relationship she thought she was pregnant despite her meticulous use of contraceptives and she was panicking. She wasn't sure how she could balance a child, the company, and Tony. Of course, Tony forgot to tell her that it was completely impossible as a side effect of the Palladium poisoning. When he caught her in the bathroom with a home pregnancy test, certain things were said that shouldn't have been said. In all honesty, they both said some things they shouldn't have.

"I didn't want to raise a kid with anyone. I don't want children. Also you had just accused me of sleeping with somebody else. How was I supposed to react?"

"I wasn't that upset about it."

No, he actually said that he completely understood with their schedules that she might need things that he couldn't give her and would be perfectly happy to help her raise the child. That was when she came to the conclusion that he wasn't upset because he was probably sleeping with Steve already at that point. She was off by six months, but she was still right. Although recent revelations regarding Tony's upbringing certainly shed some light on his reaction. She wished she'd known that at the time.

"Tony, that was the problem. I thought that I was pregnant and you assumed I cheated on you, but you weren't upset. You were actually happy at the prospect of being a father. I was terrified about raising a child and you were ready to embrace it even if you were sure it could not have been your child biologically. That's the number one reason why I think you will make a good dad." Even if the child in question happens to already be 27. "You care about people even when you shouldn't."

"I only would assume that you cheated on me if the test was positive." She just sighed.

"You know that encounter was the entire reason I thought you were already sleeping with Steve. You didn't even talk to me after that you just left for his apartment all the way in DC. It made me wonder if we really did have an open relationship because I was not nearly as angry as I should've been at the prospect of you sleeping with Steve. Actually, I wasn't angry at all. It made sense and as soon as I realized that I should've ended things, but I didn't want to."

"Fuck!" Tony exclaimed. "I thought we were getting better at being friends again."

"We are. We are sharing a lot more with each other than we ever did when we were dating. The thing is we are only going to be friends again if we talk about this stuff."

"I know." Tony sighed. "We will."

"You need to talk to Dr. Triplett. You can wait until I get there. I'm supposed to be there in a week to visit with Phil and to put in an appearance at Captain America's birthday party. I could come early." She suggested.

"Hey, Steve just came down here with sandwiches. We can talk about it later, but it would be good to see you before the birthday party." That's when the phone line went dead.

"Tony, don't hang up on me! You hung up on me." She screamed. Sometimes she wondered why they were trying so hard to repair their relationship when half the time she just wanted to strangle him.

"Would you like me to try reconnecting you?" JARVIS asked her.

"It's okay, JARVIS. Is Steve actually there?" She asked the AI.

"Yes, he is in the bunker with Mr. Stark. He also actually brought a plate of sandwiches made by Ms. Simmons. Captain Rogers sent you a text message to this effect." Of course he did. Steve was really good about text messaging and emailing her about what was going on especially in light of the Leo's situation. He didn't tell her about Tony avoiding the paternity results, but maybe he didn't know. He wasn't as skilled at reading Tony as she was yet.

"His new assistant cooks?" She asked the AI slightly surprised given Tony's earlier comment about coffee.

"Only when she is unable to sleep and she has not slept more than 3.1 hours at a time since arriving at the Arlington house 22 days ago. However, that amount has decreased by 45% since Master Leo threw a stuffed monkey at her 4.5 days ago." Tony has already programmed the AI to recognize Leo as his kid. Seriously, what is she going to do with him?

"Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark believe that she is overly concerned about her friend, Master Leo. He is only now beginning to regain some minimal speech functions. The main reason why Mr. Stark decided to throw a large birthday party for Captain Rogers was to have Ms. Simmons work on a project not related to Master Leo in any way."

That explains the extravaganza. Pepper hopes this event goes better than she expects, but any party that allows Tony to do fireworks will end badly.

"Leo must be improving if he could throw a stuffed animal at her."

"Yes. He was moved to a rehabilitation center recently and will probably be moved into the Arlington house once construction is completed. Mr. Stark is planning to interview various specialists to work with Mister Fitz." She shakes her head. She knew exactly what Tony is doing. He wasn't afraid of having a kid, he was afraid of what will happen if it turns out not to be the case.

"That's good. Please keep me updated on his progress would you?"

"Of course, Ms. Potts. I will also keep the use of pyrotechnics to a minimum at Captain Rogers' birthday party. I think Arlington zoning laws will prohibit most of what he would like to do." JARVIS knows her so well.

"Thank you, JARVIS."

"Is there anything else I can assist you with?" The AI asked.

"Tomorrow or rather today at this point, would you make an appointment for Tony to meet with Dr. Triplett?"

"I will make the arrangements Ms. Potts. Do you want me to make the appointment for next week so you can accompany Mr. Stark?" A part of her wanted to be there, but it wasn't really her place now.

"No. Just make sure Steve is able to be there." As much as it hurt, it was time to completely let go of the girlfriend role.

"Of course Ms. Potts."

To be continued.


	3. Sleeplessness, Sex, and Discussions

Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last chapter. Also thank you for putting the story on alert or giving kudos.

Warning: Sexual content

Also you may want to grab a tissue. There's one scene that actually made me cry during proofreading, twice.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2: Sleeplessness, Sex, and Discussions Nobody Wants to Have Before 6 AM<strong>

Melinda May has never been a heavy sleeper due to her line of work. And even though they've only been sharing a bed sporadically over the last three weeks, she noticed the moment that Phil was not next to her. Phil was already dressed in boxer shorts and a shirt because despite their vigorous sexual activities earlier in the evening (which they actually managed to get through without being interrupted), it was impractical to sleep naked because they could be attacked at any moment by Hydra or any other group that wanted them dead.

Officially, this list no longer included the U.S. government. As of seven days ago, they were no longer being actively hunted by the American military because Tony's lawyers managed to secure their cover as the new head of Stark Industries Humanitarian, International Education, and Lifesaving Division. She wondered how long it would take people to realize that they were still SHIELD. Probably as long as it took the Small Island Development States to realize their acronym spelled SIDS. At least, it was a cover of sorts, a way to function in regular society and a means to stay ahead of Hydra. It was useful because despite the grandstanding on television about supposedly tearing Hydra up by the roots, they were still out there and regrouping.

May waited a few minutes before she followed Phil. She didn't have to check his location to know that Phil would be in his office. She hoped that he would be talking to the recently re-established team in the Netherlands. Up until three days ago, he had been there trying to gauge if Agent Walters and her team were still loyal and would be willing to work under the front organization. They were.

Unfortunately, what she found was Phil standing at the wall with knife in hand and jazz playing in the background. She frowned to herself. She genuinely hoped that there would be longer between episodes or that they were done. And yet, here he was carving on the walls of his office. It was slightly better than using the supply closet, but it still had her worried.

She grabbed the camera, the new one that Stark gave her with an encrypted uplink to JARVIS. Maybe these new images would help them figure out what the drawing means. This was the procedure they had all agreed to after the last episode when it occurred 13 days ago.

"Why didn't you wake me?" She finally asks once it seems like Phil has finished his latest rendering and is becoming aware of his surroundings.

"I didn't want to wake you." What he really meant to say is _I didn't want to worry you. _Didn't he realize that his disappearing in the middle of the night worried her more?

"I woke up the moment you got out of bed. I don't sleep well without you next to me." May admitted reluctantly as she placed an arm around him. She discovered last time that physical contact helped him come back to himself after he had one of his episodes.

"I haven't been here much." She understands. The job of putting SHIELD back together was not going to be a quick or easy task. He needed to see if the people he was bringing into the organization really were trustworthy and not Hydra loyalists or some other potential threat. Nobody can read people better than Coulson.

"You're here more than you would've been without the Quinjet, yet another benefit of being under the Stark Industries banner." Other bonuses included decent funding, Dr. Suarez, a fully staffed lab with state of the art equipment and complete access to Maria Hill's secret files.

"I really do hate commercial. Although, I'll be taking Lola tomorrow. Oceana, West Virginia is less than five hours away by normal car." Phil was going to the small West Virginia town in hopes of retrieving a former agent in hiding, a former agent who happened to be Victoria Hand's widow, Isabella Hand.

"I should go with you." She doesn't like Phil going alone, especially since he just had an episode.

"I need you here. Both of us can't be gone at the same time."

"We have Hartley now. Why are you even going to West Virginia to convince Isabela Hand to join us? I'm not even sure she can work with Hartley anyway."

"Technically, we are already in West Virginia." She forgot that they were in the state even though they were less than 60 miles outside of DC.

"You know what I mean." She glared at him despite the fact that she was rubbing circles on his shoulders.

"We need a doctor, full-time, one that is familiar with some of the stranger things we deal with. The others that we have are going to have to go to the other bases once they are reestablished. They're both professionals and agents as well. Just because they both dated Victoria Hand does not mean that they won't be able to work with each other."

"Yes, but Dr. Hand was married to Victoria when Ward made her a widow." And May knew Hartley well enough to realize that was a possible point of contention.

"You were forced to work with Andrew, the guy you almost married, even after you married someone else." Why did Phil have to mention either of those mistakes? The whole reason why they brought in Dr. Triplett was because she didn't want to deal with her ex-fiancé.

"What about the fact that Ward is now here?" Ward was moved to the Playground once Simmons was gone because they were going to lose the other facility soon. May finds it more than a little annoying that the government seems to only be raiding actual SHIELD facilities and missing Hydra entirely.

The other reason why Ward was at the Playground now was his failed suicide attempts. He tried to slash his wrists with a button and then a piece of paper. He actually managed to lose a lot of blood before he was stabilized and because of that he is on a constant suicide watch. Ward was another reason why Phil wanted to bring an actual doctor here, full-time. Although, considering Ward killed her wife, there's a good chance Dr. Hand would probably help his next suicide attempt along regardless of her Hippocratic Oath.

"I won't mention that in my pitch." Phil kissed her gently on the lips. She knew he was trying to win the argument that way, but she wouldn't let him.

"I may kill Hunter before you return." She doesn't like the others that Hartley brought with her. She doesn't trust either of them, but Hunter was getting on her nerves especially with his constant berating of Bobbi. May never talked this badly about her former lovers including the one who happened to be the Hydra operative they were currently keeping in their basement. She's sure that Hartley's people are in this for the money and now that they are under the Stark umbrella there was more money to be had.

"Bobbi vouched for him."

"Bobbi was also sleeping with an agent who turned out to be Hydra as her post-divorce rebound. I don't trust her judgment in men or agents." Phil was kind enough to not remind her that she did the same thing, but her point was still valid.

"But it got her into Hydra and right now she is our only source of information unless we can get Ward talking."

And unfortunately Ward wasn't talking. When Phil was not flying around the world trying to recruit people to the new SHIELD, he was sitting on the other side of the invisible wall waiting for Ward to say something, anything that could be useful. However, after trying to slash his wrists with a piece of paper, Ward was barely communicating at all.

"Is Ward still only willing to talk to Skye?" The only thing Ward was still bothering to say was to repeat his request for a visit from Skye.

"Yes. Even going down there after our activities failed to produce any sort of reaction." It was her idea to send Phil down to Ward's cell post sex as part of their psychological torture. She even adjusted the ventilation system to make it very obvious what the two were doing minutes before and yet nothing.

"You can't give him what he wants." She doesn't want Skye anywhere near him right now. The young woman wasn't ready for Ward's head games yet. May was working on it, but Skye wasn't ready for a situation like that nor did May ever want to put her in that position, at least not with Ward.

"We aren't that desperate yet. We still have another option." By the way Phil stiffened under her touch, she realized that putting Skye in that room was a last resort, but it was still an option. She wondered how desperate they would have to get to use it. Thankfully, they were not there yet.

"Dr. Suarez?" May quickly supplied the name because that seemed like the most logical possibility. While it would be good for Skye and the others to speak with somebody about what happened, she is sure Phil has other plans for the doctor's skills.

"Well, Ward did tried to kill himself, twice. It would only be appropriate to get him proper mental help." She knows him too well to think this was entirely a ploy. Phil was the one who saved Natasha after all.

"There's no help for him." Ward was too far gone as far as she was concerned.

"We need information. We may have a Quinjet or two and no need for jet fuel, but we still need information. It's the only way we're going to be able to defeat Hydra for good." She understands that.

She wants to say something about how they don't need information about Hydra, they need to know why he is waking up in the middle of the night to carve on the wall, but she doesn't say that. Instead, she walks away from Phil to start the cleanup.

The screen will cover the wall for now. She will repair it later after Phil leaves for his mission. Triplett is meeting with his mechanic ex in an effort to get him to come on board. Maybe she'll have Triplett take Skye with him. Nobody would ask questions about May being in the director's office with plaster except those two. Everyone else was too new to the organization to question the story about renovations and they really were re-tiling the bathrooms. The money from Stark was very helpful for things like this.

"Did you forward the images to Stark?" Phil finally asked once the room looked normal again.

"JARVIS is looking for matches, but he hasn't found anything yet." She knows that Stark feels his AI is infallible, but she's not as certain. However, it's only been three weeks. It may take more time to find something, anything, but with each new episode she gets a little bit more worried that they're not going to find answers in time.

"And if we don't find something …" She knows what Phil is going to say so she stops him by pressing her mouth to his. He can't ask her to pull the trigger if his mouth is occupied with hers.

"We will find something. Stark or Dr. Triplett will find something. Maybe we should have Skye looking too." Skye might think to look in places that Stark wouldn't.

"No." He replied a little too quickly. "Not right now. I didn't even start doing this until I saw the…"

This didn't start until he saw the writing. That was the trigger. She knows that without him even saying it. May is certain that Skye is the reason they're going through so much effort to destroy the writing samples afterwards. He doesn't want her to suffer the same consequences.

"She may not react the same way because..." _Because she may not even be human._

"Because, she is a 0-8-4." May said instead. "That's a distinct possibility. If we don't find something soon, we may have no choice but to bring her into this."

"I know." Phil closes his eyes and pulls her closer to him. "I'm afraid we may never figure this out and I'm worried it will keep getting worse. I don't want to end up like John. He was out of his fucking mind at the end. We need a plan." She knows what he's implying without him even saying the words.

"Not that plan. John was already crazy before the GH 325. He had to be to do the things he did. You are not John Garrett."

"We…" She pushes away from him. She's not having this conversation.

"Right now, you have no right to ask me to pull the trigger. If you want me to make a decision about your life or death, I want a ring." She says half joking. Even then she wouldn't, perhaps especially not then. There is no way she could pull the trigger and she wasn't going to let Triplett or the new guy, Hunter, do that either.

She had her own plan. She had a go bag with cash and a safe house in the Australian outback. JARVIS made the final purchase just hours ago. Now that she had Phil, she couldn't lose him. The only thing left to do was to convince Steve to take over rebuilding this new SHIELD, if it came to that.

"Okay." He pulls her back into his arms and kisses her. There is no more discussion about her being forced to take him out if things got worse. Actually, it was nearly impossible for him the say anything as their kisses lead to May riding him on top of his desk minutes later. An occasional expletive, blasphemous declaration, and her name were the only words uttered. Really, it was easier to avoid difficult discussions now that they were sleeping together. All she had to do was unzip his pants and wrap her hands around him. Why didn't she consider this method years ago?

* * *

><p>Steve knew that Tony had another nightmare. Steve knew from personal experience that his boyfriend had a history of them. Tony had slept over at his apartment a lot even before their relationship became sexual (despite having a house that was less than a 15 minute cab ride away) and more than once he had woken up in the middle of the night screaming and breathing hard.<p>

However, the nightmares had increased exponentially in the last three weeks. There would be screaming and then Tony would try to sneak out of bed without waking Steve up. He never succeeded because Steve always heard him. Sometimes he would pretend to sleep through it. Other times he wouldn't. On this particular night, Tony wakes up at 1:43 AM and Steve decides not to pretend to still be asleep.

"Remember to put your pants on this time. Jemma sleeps even less than you do and you should be fully dressed in the lab anyway."

Jemma has developed a habit of falling asleep in the kitchen after creating enough food to even keep his super metabolism satisfied. Steve really likes her pesto aïoli. He know she's having nightmares too. You don't get dropped into an ocean by Hydra and not have nightmares. She doesn't say anything about it, but they keep finding her in the kitchen at weird times of the night.

"That's why she's the perfect assistant and it was one time. I am never going to be able to sneak out of bed with a partner that has super hearing, am I?" Tony jokes.

"Not a chance." Tony walks over to the bed and kisses him on the mouth. Steve tries to pull Tony back onto the bed, but the other man pulls away before he can succeed.

"Just let me pee and then you can get me back to sleep using the orgasm method. Blowjobs always make me sleepy."

Steve reluctantly lets Tony go because he knows that Tony's not coming back for a while. Tony may actually go to the bathroom, but chances are he's going to sneak down to Howard's 'bunker' to go through more of his journals trying to find any mention of the Guesthouse and the GH 325.

Since the project dates back to right after World War II, Tony thinks that Howard may have had something to do with it. They already know that he dealt with at least one alien artifact. There could be something in his personal files that may help. Steve is tempted to join Tony downstairs, but he knew his boyfriend needed some alone time. He always needed quiet time after a nightmare and Steve would give him an hour before joining him and then dragging him back to bed.

Of course, Steve hoped that Tony wasn't down there reading the files at this time of night because it wasn't very sleep inducing or relaxing especially post nightmare. He'd prefer it if Tony was finalizing preparations for the room he was creating for Leo once the young man was able to leave the rehabilitation center. Considering the phone calls that JARVIS has been making on Tony's behalf, it seems that his boyfriend was planning to bring the rehab center to him.

Unfortunately, JARVIS confirms that Tony is reading Howard's journals again. He sighs to himself, but doesn't go downstairs, at least not until he receives a text message from Pepper telling him to go get his wayward boyfriend.

Steve makes his way downstairs through the kitchen to find _Jemma asleep at the kitchen table, again. Steve wonders how she can sleep like that, but is happy that she is actually sleeping. He was tempted to carry her to her room, but the last time he tried she woke up and was unable to fall back asleep - according to JARVIS. Instead, he makes a quick trip back to the bedroom and then carefully exchanges her laptop for an actual pillow and places a blanket over her. _

_He's not surprised at all to find she was reading journal articles on traumatic brain injuries caused by hypoxia. Actually, he's seen the same journal article on Tony's tablet in the last two or three days. Really, he's just happy she wasn't working on his birthday party in the middle of the night until he realized that was what she had been doing before she started reading the journal articles. This can't keep up much longer. _

_Jemma needed to talk to somebody and it was obvious that she saw him as her boss' boyfriend rather than a friend. Maybe he should invite Sam over to talk with her. Much like May, his new friend really helped Steve deal with a lot of his issues (and unlike Natasha, Sam was supportive of his relationship with Tony). He hoped Sam could help her as well because there seemed to be more going on with Jemma than just her poor sleep patterns. Steve had noticed that even though Tony had drastically cut down on his alcohol consumption because it interfered with his medication, they're still going through the same amount. _

_The last thing he does before leaving the kitchen and heading to the bunker is to grab the food he knows that she made before she fell asleep. He's well aware that cooking is one of her better coping mechanisms. He doesn't say anything about it to her because it is more productive than demolishing punching bags, not to mention that he gets to enjoy the results of her endeavors._

_He pushes those thoughts from his mind because right now he needs to focus on Tony, who is in Leo's room surrounded by several of Howard's private journals. They appear to be from the late 60s and early 70s, except the one in Tony's hand looks newer. He also seems to be talking on the phone with Pepper. He's glad that they're talking. It makes it a little easier knowing that sleeping with Tony before the couple officially called it quits had not completely destroyed their relationship. Although from what he was hearing, it obviously wasn't back to what it was and possibly never would be. _

_As soon as Tony realizes Steve is there he ends the call. From what he'd overheard of the conversation, Steve is fairly certain that Tony was looking for a reason to end the call and Steve's arrival just happened to give him one._

_"Did JARVIS tell you where I was or did Pepper text message you?" Tony asked before pulling Steve down for a kiss._

_"How do you know that Pepper sent me a text message?" Steve asked pulling away reluctantly._

_"Seems like something she would do." Tony shrugged as he cleared a space next to him for Steve to sit down. "I don't know why she is so worried. It's not like I'm building suits in the middle of the night." __Because JARVIS won't let you,__ Steve thinks to himself. JARVIS would call him immediately of something like that started up again. Actually, it was one of the conditions they came up with if Tony was going to actively be wearing the suits once more. "I'm just going over some old papers until I feel like falling asleep again."_

_"I thought I was supposed to help you get back to sleep." To accentuate his point, Steve placed a hand on Tony's crotch and started to rub it gently through the fabric. As predicted, Tony began to harden immediately at his touch._

_"Well, that was the plan, but you were already asleep by the time I got back. However, I'm all for doing that now as soon as we move to another room and as soon as I'm done with this diary. I'm not having sex in Leo's bed. That would just be weird." Tony shivered a little bit and not in a good way. Steve knew Tony was lying because he never actually fell back asleep._

_"JARVIS?" He asked the AI specifically just to prove a point._

_"I have no record of Mr. Stark returning to your shared bedroom."_ _Steve was tempted to correct the AI. They were not sharing a room yet, not really. Steve just slept over a lot. Living together, really living together after barely being together for two months was too soon. Sharing a house with Tony right now was a necessity. The military wanted him under their control and Hydra just wanted him gone. He wasn't sure if they wanted Tony gone or under their control to make things for them. Either way, they were safer together especially now that they had another scientist to protect from Hydra's resource grab living with them._

_"Tattletale." Tony actually sticks out his tongue at the AI. "Why do I put up with you JARVIS?"_

_"Because I'm the only one who can deal with you sir." JARVIS replied flippantly._

_"You keep that up, I'm making Skye your only mommy." Steve was not sure how the AI would feel about that.__ Even Steve could tell that the AI was developing a crush of sorts on the young programmer. _

_"Obviously, you need sleep. This will still be down here in the morning." Steve pulled the diary Tony was reading from his hands._

_"It's already morning." Tony quipped. This was classic Tony avoidance. Steve has known him long enough to recognize the signs._

_"Do you want to talk about your nightmare?" They are also at the point in their relationship where Steve won't let him get away with it anymore._

_"Just go back to bed." Steve decided to take that as a 'No, I don't want to talk about why I woke up in the first place'._

_"I need to finish reading this diary, but when I'm done you can suck my dick until I cum so hard I won't wake up for a week. I love it when you let me fuck your mouth. The fact that it's almost impossible for me to choke you is a turn on." __Now this is a new Tony Stark distraction technique. __Steve kept his expression neutral and continued to hold on to the journal. _

_"And the sooner you let me get back to my reading, the sooner I can fuck you." __And it won't work._

_"Did you find something about the Guesthouse?" Steve asked because he really wanted to know what Tony found more interesting than going upstairs to have sex right now. He knew it was possible that Tony had come across something like that. Anything related to the Guesthouse would certainly qualify. _

_It__ makes Steve's skin crawl to know that SHIELD or rather Nick Fury (because this was not a SHIELD sponsored program, thank God) was actively coming up with a contingency plan if one of them died. He saw firsthand how upset May was when she thought Phil was gone for good, but nobody has a right to play God. Now Fury has put May in a position where if Phil keeps getting worse she may lose him again. Steve knows that despite how strong she is if that came to pass his loss would destroy her this time._

_"I wish, but there were nothing in Howard's diaries from the 40s and 50s about anything related to the Guesthouse. Stuff about a certain blue cube to go over later, but nothing about aliens. His diaries from the 60s and 70s contain a lot of stuff about genetic engineering and early IVF procedures. SHIELD had their own Super Soldier program in the early 70s ironically called LULLABY that thankfully never got very far. Although with a name like that, it makes sense that the program was more about him trying to produce an heir than working with alien genetics or to recreate you. Of course, maybe that's what he was actually doing. He compared me to you a lot while I was growing up. My coming into the world the old-fashioned way must've been such a disappointment." Tony said bitterly and Steve wrapped an arm around his boyfriend._

_"I'm glad it didn't work. I would hate to be around another me. I'm a complete bastard." __You are perfect the way you are.__ Tony kissed him at that._

_"No argument there." Tony smirked. "If only he put as much interest in to raising a kid as he did into having one, I would've had a decent childhood." __Howard, you're an idiot.__ Steve thought to himself. _

_"Of course, the only reason why he tried so hard to conceive me was because mom wanted a child and Obadiah was being a real prick." Steve hopes that doesn't mean what he thinks it does._

_This is just going to make Tony self-esteem issues worse. Until Steve met Tony, he didn't know it was possible for someone to appear to be completely full of themselves and yet be completely consumed by self-loathing. Of course, Howard was probably the main contributor to this phenomenon._

_"What did Howard do?" Steve asked with an annoyed side._

_"Just being a really crappy absentee father. Although, maybe he was afraid he would lose me too. I don't know because it's not like the man ever talked to me. Let's just say 1970 was a very interesting year for him and a really bad year for mom." Tony wanted to stop there are, but Steve was patiently staring him down so he would continue. _

_"So, it turns out I have a dead little sister, ironically named Natasha, who is buried in the Rose Garden at the Long Island house. Stephanie's mom had to drag Howard's ass back to Long Island to deal with everything because he ran a way to DC and his good friend, the bottle." Steve's response was to pull the man closer to him. He is so thankful that Peggy was around to literally smack some sense into Howard when Steve couldn't be there. She always was a firecracker._

_"Do you want to talk about it?"_

_"Not at all, but I'm planning on taking you to the Rose Garden eventually to pay our respects or something. Right now, I just want to get through the rest of this diary and not even think about that part of it, but you don't have to suffer with me." Tony kissed his cheek._

_"I don't like being in your bed without you." Which was very true. Steve didn't like sleeping alone. He never had. "I can help you go through journals." Because now he's worried about what other family secrets could be in these diaries._

_"You don't believe the Guesthouse thing at all?" Tony asked and Steve just shakes his head no. "You're not actually going to leave me until I tell you why I woke up."_

_"Or why you are really down here at 3 AM going through your father's diaries. I will take an explanation for either."_

_"I really was trying to find any mention of the Guesthouse or blue aliens because Agent Scary will kill me if I don't help her fix whatever's going on with Director Agent. It seems more likely that anything related to that would probably be in the diaries from the 40s or 50s and I went through those a couple of days ago. There's nothing like that in there unless it was on the pages that were conveniently torn out, which knowing Shydra, is highly probable." Tony said grudgingly. _

_"But if that was the only reason why we needed to go through the diaries, I would just turn them over to Director Agent and Agent Scary. The truth is I'm trying to find out if Howard knew that I was already a teenage dad and tried to cover it up. There was a paternity suit scare right before the car accident… Sorry, assassination. It wasn't actually a car accident was it… I need a drink for this conversation." Tony sighed frustratingly. _

_"I'll make you a hot chocolate when we go upstairs. I really do want to take you upstairs and__tuck__you in to bed."_

_"I hope that's a euphemism for blow job or hand job for that matter. Though, I doubt there's going to be any alcohol in that hot chocolate."__ That's because your new assistant keeps drinking most of the good alcohol._

_"So what happened?" Steve started __moving his hand in__ circles on Tony's back underneath the tattered Black Sabbath T-shirt he was wearing. Steve knew that Tony found skin to skin contact comforting._

_"I was 19-year-old and fucking Tiberius Stone. You know __the guy whose network__ treats me like I'm the antichrist and Pepper like her only discernible skill is spreading her legs, because I had no semblance of good taste at 19. Anyway, I was literally fucking Ty when Howard calls me in the middle of the encounter to yell at me for knocking up some innocent coed. I received that ominous phone call on December 15, 1991." Steve knew the significance of that date or rather how close it was to another significant date in Tony's life. He saw it in big red letters on the file Fury gave him when he came out of the ice. He wrapped his arms around Tony as tight as he dared and kissed the man's neck._

_"You don't have to continue." Steve whispers._

_"Yes, I do. Obviously, you realize that mom and dad were murdered by Shydra just two days later. The next thing I hear about it, I'm told the kid is not mine and Obadiah took care of it. Now I'm wondering just how Obadiah took care of it and if the kid really was mine. I don't know." Tony explained. That's when Steve realizes that the diary Tony's reading is from 1991._

_"So you're wondering if it was Leo and whether Howard or Obadiah made it go away?" Steve's question was confirmed with a positive shake of Tony's head._

_"Do you think I would've been a good dad?" Tony asked._

_"You already built this room and you have yet to meet with Stephanie to confirm that Leo is your son. You're also arranging for him to have the best care in the world to recover from what happened. You like to take care of people. I think you would be a very good dad." Steve really believed that._

_"I don't know. I already think I was a really bad one. I didn't think to question Obadiah. I was a complete prick to Howard. When he told me about the condom breaking, I reacted badly."_

_"How badly?"_

_"I'm pretty sure I hung up on him after telling him to go fuck himself. It was the last time we spoke before…"_

_"The incident." Steve finished for him._

_"Yes. I still can't believe those were my last words to him." There's a single tear rolling down Tony's cheek. _

_"Then after I became an orphan, I liked the idea of having a kid. At least that meant I wouldn't be alone. I was a mess, but…" Tony closed his eyes for a moment. "Then it wasn't true or at least Obadiah said it wasn't true and I was the last Stark in the world again." _

_With those words, Steve realizes exactly why Tony was avoiding Stephanie. The woman called Steve days ago to asking him to literally drag Tony in to speak with her. Tony wanted kids. Specifically, he wanted Leo to be his kid, but he was terrified of finding out that this was not the case again._

_"Are you avoiding Stephanie for the exact same reason why you didn't call me after we slept together for the first time?" __Or for the exact same reason that I went on a run that morning instead of waking you up so we could talk. __"Because as long as you didn't call me, I couldn't reject you." __Because as long as I avoided talking to you, you could not reject me._

_"I had to deal with Pepper first." Tony replied, but that really didn't answer Steve's question._

_"By hiding in your lab in the tower for a week," he snickered._

_"Pepper told you?" Tony shook his head._

_"We talk or rather we text message a lot." Although usually most of those messages come about when Tony doesn't show up for conference calls. Ms. Simmons is a wonderful assistant or rather a wonderful lab partner, but she's not the best person to remind Tony that he has a conference call because she's just as likely as he is to get caught up in the research. This means that Steve gets to do that, when he's not tracking down Bucky sightings._

_"Of course you do." Tony sighed. "Maybe it was a contributing factor, but you were on a mission, then Shydra happened, then you were in a coma, and your personally appointed bodyguard decided you were too good for me and threatened me with death if I even tried to call you." _

_Steve decided it was in his own best interest not to mention that Natasha gave him Sharon's contact information, but completely neglected to mention that Tony came to see him in the hospital. If he had known that Tony had driven all the way to DC to make sure he was alright, at the very least Steve would've talked to him without waiting another week._

_At some point in the future, the very near future, the Avengers were going to have to work together again. If there was any hope of that happening, Tony and Natasha need to be on speaking terms. He couldn't just run missions with Sam and/or Tony, they would need the others eventually. (Or they were going to have to rebuild the team with new people.)_

_"You can't keep putting it off. You need to talk to Stephanie." He will not enable Tony to keep running away from his life. Not this time._

_"I never get what I want."_

_"You got me."_

_"For the moment." Steve only heard those mumbled words thanks to Super Soldier hearing. His response was to kiss Tony for all he was worth. If Tony doesn't want to believe Steve's words, maybe he would believe that._

* * *

><p><em>Tony was panting by the time they broke apart. One of the bad things about dating a Super Soldier is sometimes Steve forgets that his partner needs to breathe a bit more often. Okay, sometimes that can be a good thing.<em>

_"I love you. I'm in this for the long haul even if that means you have an almost 27-year-old kid, but you have to call Stephanie. You can't keep avoiding this even if you're scared."_

_"I'm not scared." Tony told his boyfriend with as much bravado as he could muster._

"Then call Stephanie. I will fuck you if you do." Obviously, Steve was resorting to bribery. Steve didn't enjoy sex as much the other way around because he remembered bruising his partner due to super strength during his first time post transformation. However, Tony was slowly convincing Steve that he liked it hard and rough sometimes and he wasn't scared of Steve, unless he wanted to read something into tonight's dream. Honestly, he was more afraid of himself that he was of Steve.

"Tempting, but it's almost 3 AM. Stephanie is mean when she doesn't get enough sleep or at least she used to be." Tony said as an excuse and is fully aware it's a good excuse. As long as he doesn't talk to Stephanie, he can still pretend for a little bit longer.

"Actually, I'm currently conversing with Dr. Triplett." JARVIS interrupted. Why did he bother to put the AI in the bunker?

"Why are you conversing with Stephanie? Is there something wrong with Leo?" Tony asked once he realized the only logical reason why Stephanie would be calling JARVIS at this time.

"Mr. Fitz vital signs are within normal parameters. Ms. Potts asked me to schedule your appointment with her immediately. However, I was unaware that her service would connect me with her even at this time of night." JARVIS explained.

"Would you put her through JARVIS?" Steve asked over Tony's shoulder.

"I'm the boss and just because somebody responds when emailed at three in the morning does not mean…" Tony started to yell but was cut off by Stephanie's voice filling the room.

"My kid is hiding from a ruthless terrorist organization and I have no clue as to where. Do you really think I'm going to be getting a lot of sleep right now?" Stephanie asked flippantly.

"No." What went unmentioned was she was also sleepless due to the fact that Tony's lawyers were the only thing keeping certain morons in the government from going after her 94-year-old mother. People were scared and they were going after anybody and everybody because they couldn't find the real enemy. However, both knew not to say anything about this in front of Steve.

"Correct. This means that I actually do respond to your AI making emergency appointments, especially because we really need to talk in person, but since you're not going to make that happen, this will have to do."

"I could tell you where he is. Technically, he is now part of Stark Industries Humanitarian, International Education, and Lifesaving Division." Tony would fly Stephanie there right now if it meant putting off this conversation just a little bit longer.

"SHIELD 2.0. At least the new name makes more sense than the old one. How long are you going to keep using the full name?" Stephanie asked facetiously.

"As soon as the acronym is no longer synonymous with terrorism. So I'm thinking at least until 2019." Tony quipped.

"It could be longer. I did get fired just because my mom started the organization. Look, I'd rather Antoine be safe even though I do actually need to talk to him because you gave him the completely wrong idea about how he came into the world. You don't see me telling Fitz stories about underage hookups in convertibles although scientific evidence is pointing to that not being the case." The last part was mumbled under her breath, but JARVIS can pick up anything and instantly AutoCorrect the volume. Tony's face fell. He was right; nothing good ever happens to him.

"So he's not my kid?" Tony asked failing to keep the sadness out of his voice.

"Tony, he tried to take on Hydra with a suitcase of my dad's old Howling Commandos gadgets and then managed to MacGyver his way out of a medical pod at the bottom of the ocean. Of course, he's your child. The DNA test just proved the obvious." Steve kissed Tony at that moment, but Tony was in too much shock to really kiss back.

"He is my child?" He asked again when Steve's mouth pulled away. He couldn't believe it.

"Yes." Tony let go of the breath he was holding. This was good. He wasn't the last Stark anymore. He could make up for not protecting Leo when he needed it (starting from the beginning, because seriously if he had been around he definitely would not have given his son the name Leopold). Even if it was almost 27 years later than it should have been, he could still be a better dad than Howard was.

"Then why did you want to call me into your office?" _Because if Leo really was his kid__,__ why was she calling him in? What bad news did she have to give him?_

"It's too early in the morning for this conversation." Stephanie sighed.

"Good thing it is still night." Tony quipped.

"Fine, have it your way, Tony. The only reason why I let you avoid me for the last two weeks was because I was having your friend, Dr. Banner, go over the samples again to confirm my hypothesis. I'm a neurologist not a geneticist. I could have made a mistake. The only reason why I suspected that something was off because I'm as familiar with my own child's DNA profile as anything else about Antoine. I was hoping I had misread the lab results, but Dr. Banner came to the same conclusion." _What did Stephanie or rather her team find out that would result in her calling Bruce? __Why__ didn't Bruce say anything? __More importantly__, what was so special about her son's DNA profile?_

"What conclusion was that?" Tony asked keeping all signs of worry out of his voice.

"Do you actually remember having sex with Ms. Fitz in your dad's car about 27 ½ years ago?" At first, it seemed like a strange question, but the truth of the matter is he really doesn't remember that much about the encounter.

The second time he had sex was with Deborah from one of his computer engineering classes. He remembered everything including her lessons on how to get a girl off and the art of oral sex because despite it being his second time he was still a little clumsy and really didn't know what he was doing. It was okay because she was the best sex tutor ever and was really patient with him (and never sold him out to the tabloids).

They had a good arrangement that semester. He tutored her in engineering class because while their teacher was brilliant, he had no idea how to teach and was an asshole to most of the female students. In return, she tutored him in the bedroom and helped him out with his social skills in general. He was a 15-year-old college junior, of course he had no social skills.

Tony was proud that she ended up getting the same grade he received in that class. She was now one of the best engineers at SI and Tony hadn't had any say in her being hired. Besides she had a different last name at that point.

He tried to blame his clearer memories of his encounter with Deborah on the fact that they slept together a lot that semester (and still talk occasionally on various projects), but truthfully his first time in the car was blurry. Tony barely remembered anything about it all until he saw Lola again. Tony doesn't remember taking anything else other than the wine she gave him. His drug phase didn't start until later. So why doesn't he remember what happened?

"I remember her kissing me then her proceeding to unzip my pants. Then the next thing I remember clearly is being found by Mr. George, one of dad's bodyguards. Everything in between is vague." It was nonexistent, but Tony was not ready to admit that.

"Isn't he the guard who tried to kill in your lab two months ago?" Steve asked.

"Yes, but a lot of SI staff were Hydra though. I'm even sure that a few who passed the initial polygraphs after the attack have defected to the beast." It was a huge problem and part of the reason why he was keeping Simmons isolated right now.

"Shit. I remember Maria calling my mom in tears because you'd been missing for hours and she had no idea where you were. If you put that together with Mr. Fitz's strange DNA profile, then you get a very bad situation. The truth is I don't think you actually had sex with Fitz's mom."

"Stephanie what's going on?"_ What are you not telling me?_

"I'm pretty sure Fitz's conception was about as accidental as Antoine's because they share certain very unique genetic markers. And considering I was forcibly artificially inseminated by Hydra agents somewhere in Appalachia, that's not good at all." _No, it really fucking__ wasn't._

"JARVIS, wake-up Hill and tell her that I expect her in DC by 9 with bagels. She has some explaining to do."

To be continued.

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><p>Remember to feed your writer. I take reviews, kudos, favorites, followers, and anything else.<p> 


	4. What the F is Going on Here?

Thank you to everyone who read or reviewed the last chapter. I know I spoiled everyone with the quick updates (by my standards) the last few chapters, but that was mainly due to my writing the first three chapters simultaneously. I may keep writing two or three chapters at a time with this story just to facilitate quicker updates. The next chapter is mostly done. Remember, reviews make me choose to wake up at 5 AM to write for an hour rather than to sleep.

Continuity Notes: Everything that happened in Agent Carter is canon for the story because it does not contradict anything. However, this story will veer greatly from the MCU from episode 2.11 foreword. Some elements will be use some others will not. For example, Stephanie Triplett formally Carter-Jones is very different than Trip's mother on the actual show. Here she's significantly younger and she was born Carter-Jones, not the hinted at Dugan.

Warning: Descriptions of torture, unethical medical testing, and violence.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: What the Fuck is Going on Here?<strong>

Jemma woke up at 3:32 AM to the sound of her boss cursing Maria Hill from the stairwell of the lab. Considering there is a part of Jemma that personally blames the woman for her experience in the Gulf of Mexico, she believes the woman completely deserves such condemnation. If Maria Hill had never betrayed their location to the U.S. military, she and Fitz would have been safely in Canada and would never have been ejected from the Bus in a medical pod by the traitor. If not for that, things would still be the same between her and Fitz. No last-minute declarations of love before perceived imminent death. Fitz would be the same and not in some rehab center and she wouldn't feel this all-consuming guilt.

However, just because Jemma concurs with the sentiment does not mean she wants to hear his latest rant against the woman. She sees her laptop was now lying beside her. She was sure this was Steve's doing because she recognized that navy blue blanket covering her from his room; the one he never uses. Even when Stark had an overnight trip to California last week, Captain Rogers slept in his boyfriend's room.

Maybe he can't fall asleep like her - being trapped in the ice for 70 years would cause issues for anyone. Perhaps being in Stark's room is the only thing that keeps those nightmares away. She wished she had something like that, but she did not, therefore, she was still unable to sleep.

Jemma hastily fled the kitchen with her laptop, the blanket and pillow returning to her bedroom. She really had no desire to be drawn into whatever set Dr. Stark off. She needed to do something else to exhaust herself and she decided upon trying to contact Fitz's mother again. Maybe if she did something productive for Fitz, she could sleep a little bit more tonight.

"JARVIS, could you please compose an email to Fitz's mum?" She asked the AI after several minutes of struggling type out a coherent message that may or may not have been caused by sleep deprivation. She didn't typically take this kind of short cut, but talking to Jarvis usually made her feel better plus he would make sure everything was spelled correctly.

"Of course, Ms. Simmons. What would you like the message to say?" The AI replied immediately.

"Please start with the subject line 'The child you forgot you even have is now awake." She spat out bitterly.

"You used that subject line 17.3 days ago." JARVIS reminded her.

"You're right." Forgetfulness was unusual for her. She rarely forgot anything she'd written unless she was under a lot of stress. "Let's use 'When your son is nearly killed by terrorists, you should at least check up on him.'"

"That particular subject line contains information that you're not allowed to give out." JARVIS reminded her. "May I suggest, 'Please contact your son or myself at your earliest convenience'?"

"No. Please use 'Do you even remember that you have a son?'" Jemma would swear she heard the AI actually sigh. She wondered if Dr. Stark programed such behaviors into the AI. It seemed like something he would do.

"For the body of the message?" JARVIS asked after apparently finding nothing objectionable in that subject line.

"This is my 18th attempt to contact you. Your son was severely injured in a work-related accident six weeks ago. Half of that time he was in a coma. He could desperately use the support of his parents, but since his father disappeared before he was even born that leaves you. Yet, during the last six weeks we have not heard from you. Not one email or phone call in that time period let alone an actual visit. If you care about your son the tiniest microscopic bit, at least send a bloody card you cold, heartless bitch. Sincerely, Jemma Simmons a.k.a. the roommate who actually cares more about your son then you do." She included that last part because his mother is still under the impression that she is his roommate.

"Would you like the profanity removed before actually sending?" Why does she feel that this is a service that the AI performs for Dr. Stark on a regular basis?

"No," she responds sternly.

"Of course, Ms. Simmons. However, I do recommend removing the lines regarding Mr. Fitz's absentee father. You are unaware of the circumstances regarding his father being absent from his life. His father may have wanted to be part of his life, if he'd been provided with an opportunity to do so." Sometimes she thinks Stark made his AI to human.

"If he cared, he would've been there. If Fitz's mom actually cared, she would be here instead of…" She started to say but the AI cut her off.

"Mr. Fitz's father may have been entirely unaware of his existence and would have been there every moment of his life, if he had known." The AI argued.

"When did I get to the point where my only friend is an artificial intelligence?" She said sitting in the middle of her bed with head in her hands.

"One of my primary functions is to serve as a confidant for Mr. Stark. However, due to Captain Rogers' presence in his life, I no longer need to function in such a capacity." The AI almost sounded as if he was upset about that.

"So, I'm your current project? I don't need an electronic babysitter. I am quite capable of taking care of myself." Jemma argued.

"I do not believe that to be the case considering you are dictating electronic correspondence to Mister Fitz's mother at 3:52 AM after sleeping a combined two hours and 27 minutes. To function through the day, you consume 38% more caffeine than Mr. Stark himself. That is a remarkable feat." She feels like telling the AI that she's a SHIELD agent and therefore she was conditioned to function on very little sleep, but she doesn't. She's not an agent anymore, not really, even if she is monitoring Dr. Stark to make sure he doesn't create anything that could accidentally end society.

"That's not…" She stops speaking realizing that it is not productive to argue with a computer, albeit a highly intelligent one.

"Just send the letter." Jemma sighed.

"I apologize, but I'm unable to do that." Jarvis responded after a moment.

"Fine, takeout the line and send the letter." Jemma acquiesced. She wouldn't be surprised if Ms. Potts put in a filter that prevented angry rants from being mailed out. There's a reason why PR makes her review Stark's tweets before he can send them out. He would've called Senator Ward a cowardly prick (or some variation) six times in the last week without her reluctant intervention.

"32.3 minutes ago Captain Rogers per the advice of Dr. Triplett activated a protocol that prevents me from forwarding any correspondence to Mr. Fitz's alleged mother. If you try to re-create this message on your computer to send manually, I will still block the transmission of the correspondence." The AI told her before she could even move to grab her laptop.

_Why can't I email her now?_ It seems odd that this is happening especially after Dr. Stark's earlier verbal outbursts. Did something happen? _"_Why are you referring to her as Fitz's alleged mother?" Is the question she actually asked aloud.

"If she was actually his mother, would she not have been here? That is what you stated earlier." The AI said turning her logic around on her.

"I hate it when you do that. Fine, but why am I not allowed to email her now? I'm even allowed to freely contact my father even though he works for a competitor." She finds it deeply ironic that after years of her parents trying to get her to take a 'respectable job befitting her academic credentials' that they are upset by the fact she took a position at Stark Industries. It doesn't surprise her though because her father's company has been fighting with Stark Industries since before Captain Rogers' disappearance in the 40's. "The situation with Ms. Fitz is completely different and the moratorium on communication is for your own safety."

Why would the AI say something like that now? She's been trying to contact the woman since leaving the Playground and this is the first time she's been stopped from doing so.

"Why can't I attempt to contact Ms. Fitz anymore? Did something happen? Did Maria Hill find her?" A discussion with Maria Hill about Fitz's mom could've triggered the earlier shouting she heard from Stark.

"I am not at liberty to discuss this topic any further. You will need to speak to Mr. Stark regarding this matter." She was prepared to do just that. "However, I recommend waiting until morning due to the fact that he and Captain Rogers are currently engaged in activities that you do not want to interrupt."

"I don't care." They couldn't be that far along. She heard mumbled curses of Maria Hill's name just a few minutes earlier. She opens the door only to see her boss with pants around his ankles receiving fellatio from a national icon.

"Couldn't they have at least waited until they got to the bedroom?" She said after quietly shutting the door to her room. She really hoped they didn't notice her. Steve was otherwise engaged and Stark had his eyes closed and was loudly referring to him as a deity.

"I tried to warn you Ms. Simmons."

"You could have specifically mentioned they were engaging in those activities right outside my door." She exclaimed more than a little irritated as she climbs onto her bed.

"Would you like for me to play soothing music in an effort to induce sleep?" The AI asked probably realizing that she could still hear the couple. Soundproofing could only do so much when a person was being thrust against the wall outside of your room repeatedly during coitus.

"No ocean sounds." She'd already had enough nightmares tonight.

"Of course, Ms. Simmons."

* * *

><p>Steve has known Tony long enough to realize that he's not going to get his boyfriend back to sleep anytime soon, but that doesn't stop him from escorting Tony back upstairs (i.e. actually carrying him to the elevator). They make it to the lab before Tony starts cursing Maria Hill and Fury for keeping the truth from him. Tony's frustration gets the better of him and he grabs the first thing that comes to hand and throws it across the lab. After watching it shatter against the wall, Steve manages to get Tony to continue into the kitchen - a kitchen that no longer contains a sleeping assistant.<p>

Steve wonders if she woke up on her own or if Tony's tirade caused that. The basement is purposely not soundproof in case Tony does something stupid in the lab. Tony screaming a few minutes earlier could've woken up anyone. Steve wondered how much she heard. Tony wanted to be certain of his paternity before they shared the information. Besides, it wasn't exclusively their secret to tell.

"I could've died." Tony says sitting down at the kitchen table as Steve heats up a pan of milk. He had promised Tony hot chocolate and hopes it will stop Tony from shaking. His hands have been twitching since the moment Stephanie suggested a Hydra connection to the existence of Tony's son and knowing Hydra the way he does he could believe it. He readily believes they would use a child as a bargaining chip or at worst a weapon.

"I could've died at least four times without knowing that I actually have a child. It's more than that if you count all the times that I almost OD during the worst of my drug phase. 1992 was a bad year." That would've been a year after Howard and Maria died and all the responsibilities of Stark Industries started being thrown at him, in addition to Mr. Jarvis getting very sick that year. "Being high was the only way I could get through everything." He could see Tony turning to the wrong things as a coping mechanism because he still did it sometimes. It was another reason he wished he'd gotten pulled out of the ice earlier.

"But you are still here. You survived long enough to meet your son," long enough to meet me. "Not telling you wasn't right, but..."

"You're going to tell me they had their reasons because you're noble and trusting like that."

"No, I'm not." He trusted the motivations of old SHIELD about as far as he could have tossed a baseball pre-serum and that was before he found out about the Hydra corruption. "Lying to you was bad, but being angry will not give you back the time you lost. It took me about 20 broken punching bags to realize that. I think that's what you're really furious about and I understand. You're mad that you missed so much because you could have been a part of it. Everything went along without you. There's a lot of resentment there."

He feels a piece of that every time he sees Stephanie, his own living embodiment of everything lost. However, if things were different, he wouldn't be with Tony now and he didn't want that.

"Maybe I am feeling some of that, but I'm angrier at myself than I am at Spies Incorporated. I was a worse father then Howard simply due to ignorance." Steve stops stirring the milk to go over and hug Tony.

"You're not." He places a kiss on Tony's neck.

"I didn't question Obadiah. I need to finish going through that diary. I need to know if he…" That's when Steve notices that Tony actually brought one of the diaries with him. Steve was certain he took that out of his hands before he put Tony over his shoulder to carry him fireman style upstairs.

"What if Howard really did discover Leo? Hydra could've killed him for finding out about their secret Stark baby factory. If Stephanie is right and they really did steal my sperm, there could be dozens of little Stark super geniuses being trained to be Hydra assassins just like…" 'Natasha.' Steve thinks the name, but doesn't say it out loud and neither does Tony. He knows bits and pieces about Natasha's childhood as a child soldier. The thought of Hydra doing something like that with children made from Tony's DNA made him sick. Instead of throwing up like he wants, he grabs the diary out of Tony's hand.

"Tony, it's late. There's no point worrying about this stuff until we talk to Hill and Stephanie tomorrow. Let me finish the hot chocolate and then I'll tuck you into bed."

"Blowjob?" Tony almost half smiled. But it didn't quite reach his eyes. When even sex doesn't make Tony smile, you know something's wrong.

"Maybe, if you don't pick up that diary when I turn around to add the chocolate to the milk."

"You're horrible." Tony brings out a mock pout, but it's a mask. Steve can see the pain in his eyes. It hurts his heart.

"I worry about you." Steve said turning his attention back to the milk, just in time to keep it from boiling over.

"Maybe I am overreacting. Stephanie is not a geneticists or even a biologist. Maybe her theory is just her being paranoid. Actually, I'm not even 100% sure what her theory is because you had Jarvis cut the call after I ordered Maria down here."

"Because the conversation became too sensitive to continue over the phone despite your encryption capabilities. Anyway, I thought she minored in biology in undergrad." Peggy mentioned something about that to him during one of their visits. She loved bragging about her kids although sometimes she thought Stephanie was still in college.

"Probably, I think she only had to take two more classes to get a minor since she was already premed. It's a pretty common thing to do. It's the reason why I have so many doctorates; a lot of my coursework overlapped." Steve's response is to just pour the chocolate chips into the hot milk and begin to stir.

"You know we have perfectly good hot chocolate mix. The good stuff. The Mexican stuff." Tony finally says as Steve pours the hot chocolate mixture into two mugs.

"I like doing things the old-fashioned way sometimes. It's relaxing." _Because I'm just as worried about this is you are, but one of us has to stay halfway rational._

"What I'd find really relaxing is if you'd let me add some bourbon or something else to this." Steve is pretty sure Tony is at least half serious.

"Alcohol is not good for situations like this. Besides, it will interact with your medication." All of which was true.

"And if it turns out that Hydra really did steal my sperm and is creating an army of snarky geniuses to rule the world, I'm going to need my crazy pills." Tony quipped.

"You're not crazy."

"I'm bipolar with a nasty case of PTSD and substance abuse issues for flavor." He kisses Tony at that moment. Steve could taste chocolate and cream on Tony's lips.

"You're still not crazy - just human like the rest of us." Steve told Tony as he pulled away and Tony sipped his hot chocolate.

While Tony drank his hot chocolate, there were several more rants against Hill and Fury. Once Tony finished his drink, Steve dragged the man towards his room to give him that blowjob. They don't actually make it that far. It's not surprising. Before Jemma moved in, they had sex pretty much anywhere in the house. Now that they had a houseguest they were trying to limit things to the bedroom, Tony's workshop, or their own bathroom. Steve's need to comfort Tony only got them as far as the hall. He offered a silent prayer that Jemma had fallen back to sleep before losing himself in the act.

When they finally reach their room, Tony doesn't fall asleep and neither does Steve. They lie in bed spooned together as Steve rubs circles across Tony's back and shoulders. This keeps up until JARVIS notifies them that Stephanie has arrived with a bag of groceries and was currently talking with Tony's new driver/personal mechanic in the driveway.

* * *

><p><em>Her hands are bound to the metal table beneath her. She feels the cold steel against her bare skin. Her feet were also shackled. She would break Dr. Blue Eyes in half if he came after her with scalpel in hand if she wasn't chained to the table. He ran the blade against her stomach. As usual his cuts were shallow, but she can feel the blood leaving her. <em>

_At least this won't leave any scars. That was the whole point of this exercise to determine how fast she heals. She never screams nor does she cry. She doesn't give them the satisfaction, but something's different tonight. The scalpel starts to cut deeper and soon it feels as if something was being ripped out of her. She hears a baby, her baby, wail as Dr. Blue Eyes takes him away from her._

"_Antoine," _Stephanie screams out just as she wakes up. Her whole body shaking as she looks at the clock. It was only 4:38 AM. She was barely asleep for 45 minutes before the nightmares came. Her kidnapping flashbacks had become less frequent over time, but they never really went away completely.

She isn't surprised she had one tonight. Stephanie Triplett nee Carter-Jones doesn't sleep well without taking an Ambien. Even those haven't helped in the last 10 weeks since everything fell apart. To make matters worse, her husband's job had him in another state for the time being allowing him to come to DC only every other weekend.

The other reason for her constant sleeplessness was her only child decided to follow in his grandparent's footsteps and join the world of international espionage. She's gotten used to sleepless nights wondering where her son was when he couldn't contact her. It made complete sense that her subconscious would combine the two.

Her nightmares have increased exponentially ever since Stephanie watched her mother's legacy fall apart on her iPad. She waited desperately for someone – anyone to tell her what the fuck was going on. Marcy called first to let her know that the CIA had Sharon in custody and they would be offering her a deal to join because she helped take Hydra down during the 'Triskelion incident', but neither Marcy, Jamie, nor Desiree knew anything about Antoine despite all their contacts, not even if he was alive. For two weeks she worried, but told herself that the constant FBI, CIA, and military interviews would not have happened if her son was dead.

At the end of the first week, she got desperate and called her husband's old friend Virginia to get the contact information for former Director Hill, the woman that Stephanie would personally hold responsible if her son was dead. Stephanie may or may not have threatened the woman's life if she did not hear from her son. Okay, her exact words were "If my son is dead, I will kill you. Then I will arrange for somebody to bring you back and I will kill you again. Don't think I can't pull it off because I know people."

A week later Antoine showed up healthy and in need of her dad's old Howling Commandos spy gear for reasons that she was better off not knowing. Over the years, she has wondered why her mom gave her the box instead of Marcy or why Marcy never protested her having these things. Maybe it was because Marcy had her biological father's old SSR gadgets. Stephanie didn't know.

Regardless of her own sentimental attachment to the suitcase of gadgets, she handed them over because Antoine was going to do whatever he was going to do with or without the stuff in that box and with it at least he would have a fighting chance. She didn't tell Marcy or Jamie about Antoine making contact with her. A week later when he called her to let her know that he was safe, she knew she had made the right decision. Of course, at that point, she was at her new job on the other side of the country dealing with his colleague, who barely survived Hydra's attempt to kill him.

How she found herself under Tony Stark's protection and working for Stark Industries was a long dysfunctional story. She's not entirely sure if she was fired because her mother founded SHIELD, her son worked for the now discredited organization, or if her employers were just disturbed by her being pulled out of the hospital multiple times to be interrogated by idiots, who couldn't find real Hydra agents even if they were wearing their lapel pins.

It doesn't matter because she found herself with no choice but to accept Tony's job offer. Looking back, she feels horrible for pushing her friend away all those years ago just because the young woman who died helping her escape from that hell had his eyes.

At least she was closer to her mom, although that meant also being closer to certain siblings who still treat her like a pariah because they have no idea what happened 28 years ago. Nor was she planning to tell any of them anytime soon. Stephanie was thrilled to learn that she has to attend the official Captain America birthday party. She had been dreading having to show up to her brother's annual Fourth of July spectacular now that she lived in the same metro area.

Besides, it was a decent job. There were a lot of good things about being the head of SI medical research programs and overseeing the company's partnership with Georgetown. However, the more bizarre duties of this job include taking care of her son's new boss who had been treated with 'alien materials' to bring him back from the dead. Stephanie was not shocked at all to learn Nick Fury would do something like that. It was things like this that made her want to ask for more money at the very least.

She was also taking care of an agent who had suffered severe brain damage courtesy of Hydra literally deep sixing him. It was something of a shock to discover that he's actually Tony Stark's long-lost son who may or may not have been created in a test tube by the very entity that put him under her care in the first place. On top of that, she's still getting frequent visits from the FBI, although, now, most of their questions are about her mom. It was enough to make her really miss doing Alzheimer research in California.

The situation with Tony's son is probably the reason why she had her first Nursery Group dream in almost a year. The whole situation reminded her too much of those months held captive in Appalachia. Stephanie was really thankful that Steve decided that the conversation was too classified to continue despite Tony's encryption. The damage had been done though. It still resulted in her waking up screaming not even an hour later.

She gave up on getting any more sleep and decided to just to head over to Tony's house. As much as she never wanted to talk about her time in Appalachia, he still needed to know the truth or at least the stuff she never told SHIELD, because she never really completely trusted them and for good reason apparently. Even though Maria Hill wasn't part of Hydra, Stephanie still did not trust the woman. Therefore, she wanted to have this conversation with Tony before Hill arrived.

She procrastinated by making a trip to a nearby grocery store for breakfast ingredients and a cheesy congratulatory 'It's a boy' gift because she felt like she needed to get Tony an apology present. It's very hard to shop for a billionaire, but Tony always appreciated a good snarky joke. She finally pulled up into the driveway of Stark's house in Arlington a little before 7 AM. To her surprise, Stephanie saw a familiar face standing outside of Stark's limo.

"Mack, what are you doing here?" She said as she hugged the man she had always wanted to be her son-in-law. What she really wanted to say was 'Thank God, you're not dead or Hydra', but she held back those words. She would probably start crying if she said something like that.

Stephanie always thought it was a shame they decided they would be better off as friends. The end of that relationship led to Robin and Robin led to wedding rings being tossed into the Potomac (good thing she refused to let Antoine use her father's wedding band). It also led to her elderly mom breaking the nose of one of her nurses twice. The fact that her mom was still that physically strong despite her advanced age and other medical conditions was causing Stephanie to receive all sorts of questions from people she didn't want to talk to. They were the type that would throw her into a dark hole somewhere probably in the Caribbean. That growing fear was the other reason why she was here. Since Tony was doing everything in his power to protect her and her family, he deserved to know the truth.

"Former Director Hill managed to get me a job here as a bodyguard/mechanic/driver." Stephanie was sure there was more to the story than that. You don't grow up with spies for parents without picking up something.

"Didn't you flunk combat certification?" This is why she questioned his story. Stephanie distinctly remembered Antoine telling her that when he tried to explain why the two were breaking up post Academy. Supposedly, Mack being stuck at the base with Antoine being all over the globe made a relationship difficult.

"No, but only because Trip helped me. Really, I'm here for the cars and to avoid the interrogations." That seems plausible. If her husband wasn't friends with Virginia Potts, Stephanie felt like she would still be locked away in a windowless room. Marcy would try to protect her and so would Jamie, but they didn't know what she really was.

"I'm sure they are really nice cars." Tony always loved cars.

"I'd appreciate them more if I wasn't driving one to pick up my old boss, who my new boss completely hates, before 7 AM on my supposed day off." Mack complained.

"Hill?" She questioned.

"Yes. Luckily, this should be done by late morning and I will still be able to meet Trip for lunch." Her mouth opens at that. Trip hasn't even called her in the last three weeks and he is making lunch dates with his ex-boyfriend.

"Your meeting with Antoine?" She could not keep the hurt out of her voice.

"Yes." Mack answered reluctantly. "I thought you knew."

"We haven't talked much recently given what's going on."

'_I haven't spoken to him at all since a very angry conversation three weeks ago because Tony told him that he was the product of her being raped by Hydra agents during kidnapping._ _Strangely, rape was one of the few torture tactics that they didn't employ.'_ Stephanie swallowed the words down. There was no reason for her to tell her son's ex-boyfriend that.

"That makes sense. I'll remind him to call you, but if you get done here in time, you could catch him when he visits your mom this morning. He told me he was going to go there first." She couldn't believe Mack just told her exactly where she could find her son.

"You were always my favorite." Considering he went through agent training, Mack knew exactly what he was doing.

"Unfortunately, we work better as friends." He gave her a sad smile before sliding into the driver seat of the car.

"Some people do." She returned the smile before walking up the steps.

Given Steve's appearance, it's obvious that her conversation with Mack had allowed Steve just long enough to actually put on jeans and a T-shirt, although not enough to shower because the scent of sex still clung to him. Tony came in a few minutes later complete with bite marks that Stephanie does not want to think about at all.

"I forgive you for coming this early because you brought food although no bacon." Tony said taking the box of donuts from her as he led her to his state-of-the-art kitchen.

"No cook bacon." She pulled a packet out of the green reusable grocery bag. "The breakfast bar doesn't open for another hour. I figured I could make breakfast while we talk. My French toast has only gotten better."

"You should've waited an hour. I love their bacon and I've had your French toast before. Anything short of charred would be an improvement. You caused a fire and made Jarvis cry. I didn't even think that was possible." He said referring to her first attempt at cooking.

"I ruined his favorite pan, but I've gotten better. Mom made me take cooking lessons. Besides, if I waited an hour, I am not sure we would have time to talk before Hill arrives. I caught Mack as he was leaving to get her."

"You know him?" Steve asked Stephanie as he helped her with the groceries. She brought a lot of stuff because her husband told her scary stories about Tony's kitchen related via Virginia.

"He is Antoine's ex-boyfriend from his Academy days. Nice boy. My preferred choice for future son-in-law, but now they're just really good friends."

"Does that mean he's probably not a plant by Maria Hill?" Tony asked.

"Only in the sense that he's probably here to keep you from creating a sentient car that will try to take over the world." She joked, mostly. "Do you have ingredients for omelets? I brought eggs, but I forgot to get any produce." Yes, she was procrastinating.

"Possibly, it depends on how much cooking Jemma did last night." Steve goes over to the fridge to check its contents.

"She doesn't sleep much. You don't happen to have the name of a therapist who specializes in PTSD?"

"Not here. Dr. Warner at my old hospital was great but…" _After the kidnapping, we moved to New York to a place that was pretty much an armed fortress, so I never had a chance to work with anybody in the DC area._

"We still have peppers, onions, cheese and ham." Thankfully, Steve interrupted before she had to completely answer Tony's question.

"That works." Steve hands her the stuff from the fridge and Stephanie starts to raid Tony's spice collection. He actually had a pretty decent assortment. His new assistant seems like the type of person who would do such things.

"You actually can cook now." Tony remarked a few minutes later as he watched her create the perfect base for the omelet with just a touch of milk.

"I really had no choice. Mom wasn't going to let me just palm Antoine off on her except for when I was at school. I had to be his mom full time and that meant learning to cook." She burned a lot of pots, but eventually she got it, after her mom called in Jarvis for lessons.

"Why did you…" Tony started to ask but stopped himself.

"Why did I keep Antoine if I was impregnated against my will?" Antoine asked her the same question when they talked last time. She doubted her son accepted her answer of 'because I love you'.

"Yes. I know you said that you were not raped, but…" Tony began, but is cut off by his boyfriend poking him in the ribs. That had to hurt.

"We should concentrate on breakfast now. We can talk about this when Hill gets here." Steve suggested.

"I don't want Maria Hill or anyone else to know about what happened at the Nursery facility." That's what she called the place where they held her. "I came here to tell you both what happened because you need to know and I trust you both to keep this between us."

"So we can understand why you think Hydra kidnapped to me for my sperm and created Leo?"

"Yes, because my suspicions are not going to make sense unless you know everything." She took a deep breath. "It was December 1985 and we were living in DC because mom was still Director."

"And you were dating some guy that I absolutely hated." Tony added.

"Yeah. Well, I ditched my security detail so I could let said guy deflower me because I was young and stupid. On the way to his house, I was picked up by…" She slammed the container of egg mixture on the counter causing some of it to spill all over the pristine granite countertop.

"Hydra." Both men supplied simultaneously.

"Yes, but I didn't know that at the time. They were there in a SHIELD van. I thought mom sent them to get me until I felt a syringe inserted in my neck."

"They probably were SHIELD, but not sent by your mother."

"Again, it's not like I knew that at the time. It was not a pleasant experience. At first, I was experimented on. They took lots of blood and tissue samples before moving on to the type of stuff that mom would never let the SHIELD scientists do."

She closed her eyes, her fingers unconsciously go to the scars on her wrists that should be there but aren't. After everything that's been on the Internet, she wondered if the same doctors who gave her lollipops as a kid were the ones who held her down as they measured how long it took her to recover from a knife wound to her thigh. Of course, she couldn't tell Tony about that part of her ordeal. She never told anybody about that and never would.

"I must've passed all the tests because eventually they decided I would make a good incubator and that's how I got Antoine." The day she discovered she was pregnant was the day Stephanie decided that she wasn't going to let either of them continue to be guinea pigs of the nursery group. She did anything she had to do to get out of there including snapping the neck of the scientist she thought of as Dr. Blue Eyes.

"You sit down. Let me take over. Besides you're a guest, you shouldn't be cooking." The way Steve looked at her she knew she wasn't going to be able to say no.

"Fine, at least until I'm done saying what I need to say." Yet she didn't speak once she took the seat next to Tony. This conversation was too fucking hard.

"Why were they running test on you? Why did they choose you?" Tony asked after a moment.

"They're an evil, nebulous organization. It's hard to understand their motivations sometimes." She replied flippantly. Only that tactic doesn't work on somebody who is more snarkier than her. It looks like she's going to have to tell Tony everything.

"Do you remember the first time somebody tried to kidnap us?"

"I was five and you were seven. Two people tried to grab us when Jarvis was picking us up from school. Jarvis was able to get me away from the guy after hitting him with my book bag, but you were able to get away on your own."

"I kicked the guy so hard that I broke his leg and I was able to get away." Years later, when she woke earlier than expected from the sedative and found herself at the Nursery, she attacked one of the guys guarding her. She may have killed him, but she's not sure because they knocked her out again before she could do anything else. This was why they chained her up.

"You were seven!" Tony exclaimed bringing her back to the conversation.

"Some seven-year-olds have more training than other seven-year-olds." She answered nonchalantly.

"I doubt Peggy ever tried to turn you into a child soldier." Steve said from beside her.

"While mom got more cynical as time went by, she never got to that point. She was furious when Howard taught us how to shoot." Stephanie explained. "I'm not quite normal."

"I've known that for forever. You could do calculus at 10."

"Yes, three years later than you. That's not what I mean Tony." Stephanie sighed. "It will be easier if I just showed you." That's when she walks over to the double refrigerator and lifts it without any effort whatsoever.

"I can see Steve doing that, but not you. Not unless you're …You're a LULLABY kid? Dad's super-secret super soldier project. I mean it is weird for a woman to have a kid in her 50s and I could so see your mom adopting you to protect you from…"

"Considering I have no idea what a LULLABY kid is I'm going to answer no."

"I don't either. Howard didn't define the acronym in his notes."

"If Jamie's traumatic childhood stories are to be believed, I'm pretty sure I was created the old-fashioned way. I inherited certain gifts from my parents." Stephanie quipped.

"But both Peggy and Gabe were normal." Steve said looking at her with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Maybe when you knew them, but stuff happened. Did you know that some idiot managed to spill a teeny bit of the super soldier serum on mom before they used it on you?" He probably didn't. Her mom never told that to anyone.

"It was only a little bit." He probably knew a lot of things about both her parents that she never would. They never really talked about the war.

"She had a cut on her hand and it got into her blood stream. At the time nothing happened, but then on some secret mission a few years later she was exposed to a certain type of radiation and voila, my mom looked 30 until she was 85." Something happened that caused her to age almost 50 years overnight. Marcy, Antoine, or Sharon won't tell her anything about it and it did not make the SHIELD data dump.

"That was true. I never believed that she and dad were almost the same age. She looked closer in age to my mom." Tony added.

"And Gabe?" Steve asked.

"He had the world's greatest immune system. He never got sick ever. When he got hurt, he would recover a lot faster than normal. He managed to survive things that would have killed a normal person. He didn't die of old age, he was shot in the head." His death may or may not have been a Hydra assassination, but she wouldn't say that out loud. Marcy was looking into it. However, by the way Steve wasn't looking at her, she had a feeling that he had already come to that conclusion.

"How did your dad get super healing? Was he exposed to something?" Of course, Tony would ask those questions. He is a constant scientist. Knowledge is always his priority.

"I don't know." Although, the most recent blood sample you gave me has the same unusual antibodies that Gabe's blood contained. However, the stored sample that Bruce was working from does not. Stephanie wasn't going to have that conversation right now because it implied something that she wasn't completely ready to deal with.

"Anyway, when you combine the two together, you get me – the woman who looks almost the same age as her son and had to swear her doctor to secrecy when her broken leg healed completely in three weeks."

"And you can apparently lift huge refrigerators without trying?" Tony asked one eyebrow raised.

"Yes. I brought my research." She said holding up her iPad.

"I'm going to have to get you something better than this." Tony said taking the tablet from her as he led her to the living room.

"I have two Stark Pads now thanks to you. However, I don't want this on the system."

"Why? My system is so much more secure."

"It's best to keep this information off the network. Currently that iPad contains information about the unique genetic markers from my son's DNA which also matches your son's DNA in addition to my own." _I may trust you, but I don't trust the others you work with not to do bad things with this data_, Stephanie thought to herself.

"What are these unique markers? What's so special about Leo that you're sure he was created in a lab?"

"Just like Antoine, Mr. Fitz was created using DNA from three contributors." She blurted out giving up on explaining this gently.

"What?"

"You can't be that surprised. I know you keep up with most scientific journals. Even VNN did an article back in February about three parent embryos. FDA trials are currently going on for the technique."

"I don't get my scientific news from VNN. I don't even get my regular news from any network affiliated with Ty-Ty. Not that the garbage they spew can be considered news. They are usually too busy trashing Pepper to do anything resembling journalism."

"I did warn you he was a prick the first time I met him. JARVIS, would you please pull up any public information about the FDA trials."

"Put it in the living room Jarvis." Steve told the AI. "You guys go in the living room. I will bring coffee out in a few minutes."

"Please tell me it will be Irish coffee?" Steve shakes his head no and she follows Tony to the living room to look over the files.

* * *

><p>Simmons managed to fall asleep again for one hour and 49 minutes even after being exposed to Dr. Stark's sex life. She forgot about the alarm that she set the morning before on her old fashioned wind-up. Jarvis cannot deactivate remotely otherwise the AI would've done so. He always allows her to oversleep (or rather sleep past her alarm) when she has a very restless night thus the reason why she started setting a manual alarm.<p>

Jemma is thankful for the connecting bathroom because she could get ready for the day without venturing into the hallway. She is reasonably certain that they would be done by now, but had no wish to see them again if that wasn't the case. However, eventually she did have to leave the suite because work was calling her.

"If I walk in to the hallway now, will I see a repeat of last night?" She asked the AI as a precaution.

"Mr. Stark is currently working on a tablet in the living room as Captain Rogers and Dr. Triplett prepare breakfast. Both are also fully clothed."

"I would assume that to be the case since Dr. Triplett is present."

"Ms. Potts would argue otherwise." JARVIS remarked and she walked out the door. Within seconds, she heard her boss yelling.

"Why didn't you sit me down with this information when I started to avoid you two weeks ago? Also this is going on the private server with the good encryption and then I'm taking a repulsor to this iPad to make sure nobody can recover the information off of it." Dr. Stark was screaming which was never ever a good sign. The last time he'd been this upset (excluding the Hill incident) was three days ago during a videoconference with R&D when she had pointed out several flaws with their latest robotic prototype.

"Because I needed verification from an outside source. I told you that last night. Considering that the FDA has only been considering approving the use of three parent embryos since February, I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy. As you can see, Dr. Banner came to the same conclusion." She heard Trip's mother explained.

Jemma realizes that she should not be listening to this conversation, but as a scientist she is curious.

"And this is how Hydra created your son?" And because whatever they're talking about involves Trip she's even more curious.

"Yes. I don't even know who Antoine's other two parents are. I noticed the same uniqueness in his sample."

"But I am one of the three DNA contributors?"

"Yes. I'm not even sure if the woman who raised him is one of the other two. I need a blood sample from her and according to Hill nobody has heard from her since before SHIELD fell. I really find it to be bizarre she raised him with the same cover identity used to secure the sample in the first place."

"Hydra has always been known for their hubris." She heard Steve say.

"Which explains why they put their giant red octopus logo on everything." Says the man who puts his name on his building Jemma thought to herself.

"So what you're saying is you believe that Hydra created Leo from Tony's DNA using a technique that is only now being considered for approval by the FDA?" There's no way she heard that right. There's just no way.

"I don't know why you find this surprising considering that you were born before my mom and look almost the same age as my son thanks to SSR engineering."

"Is it really creepy for me to be dating someone who is the same age as my child?" She heard Stark wonder out loud, however, she was too busy focusing on convincing herself that they were not talking about Fitz.

"Not when said child was probably created without your consent and your boyfriend is really about three years from being a centenarian."

"I need a fucking drink."

"It's barely 7 AM."

"If Hydra created a kid from your DNA when you were a teenager and then subsequently tried to kill him by dumping him in the ocean because he didn't turn out to be some easily manipulated pawn, you would want to get drunk before 8 AM too… if such a thing were still possible for you." They were talking about Fitz. There was no one else they could be talking about.

"You're Fitz's father?" She asked from the stairway startling the three downstairs.

"JARVIS, we talked about letting me know when Jemma is around after the naked snacking incident." He told the AI before turning to her. "Now, I'm starting to realize how you ended up in the Pirate's super spy organization."

"Well, you might want to speak to JARVIS again, because he's seriously mucking it up considering I walked in on you receiving fellat…"

"Don't finish that sentence." She was cut off by Dr. Triplett. "I really don't want to know what my parents' ex-boyfriend is doing with my childhood friend. It is just too weird." Jemma is almost certain that the doctor used the plural possessive form of parents. However her mind was more consumed by other things to actually pay attention to that.

"You're Fitz's father?" She repeated the question again as she was doing the calculations in her mind. He couldn't have been more than 15 when Fitz was born.

"Yes, but before I get your condemnation for being an absentee father, I didn't know because his Hydra affiliated mommy never told me." It's now clear why she's no longer allowed to contact Fitz's mother. "Howard might have, but he was killed two days after finding out about a potential paternity situation that may or may not have been your friend, but I don't know for sure. I had no idea he existed until The Playground."

"His mom talked about you a lot. Fitz said she mentioned that the two of you had some classes together." Simmons confessed.

"See, maybe it did happen the old-fashioned way."

"Despite the fact you don't actually remember having sex?" Stephanie deadpanned. "You did look over Bruce's results? Babies like that do not come from inexperienced teenage fumbles in the back seat of a vintage convertible."

"Good point."

"I am Fitz's medical power of attorney which means I get to make any decisions about him when he's not able to do so. So I would really like to know what the fuck is going on?" She practically yelled because at this point she was very confused.

"So would I." Dr. Stark said exasperatedly. "ETA on Hill?"

"14 minutes, Mr. Stark." The AI replied.

"Would you like some breakfast? Steve made omelets. I'm sure you have barely been eating the last few days." Before she realizes it, Trip's mother is forcing her into the kitchen to have breakfast and she is still just as confused. She had no choice but to follow her. She took tiny bites of her omelet as she wondered how Fitz would react to his finding out his idol was his long-lost father.

The peace of breakfast was disrupted by the arrival of Maria Hill. "So how long did you and the Pirate know that I had a fucking kid?" She heard Stark scream the moment the front door opened.

"Also, where are my bagels?" She couldn't help but rolled her eyes at that. She also couldn't help but make her way to the door so she could see the exchange.

"In New York." She said moving to one of the couches.

"I'm still waiting for an answer, because honestly, I have no trouble turning you over to Talbot's replacement."

"A SHIELD team, headed by Isabella Hartley, discovered his existence six years ago when investigating Obadiah after his death." Once again her boss erupted in a litany of curse words.

"That would've been right around the time you showed up at Fitz's door to convince him to join the Academy." Jemma said out loud in interrupting the tirade. Only now did she realize how peculiar it was for the Deputy Director of SHIELD to personally recruit Fitz despite his engineering brilliance.

"What an interesting coincidence. Explain, before I fly you to Guantánamo myself."

"We believe that Obadiah/Hydra was planning to use Fitz to take over the company in the event of your death. At the time we weren't aware of the latter's involvement, but we felt it was best to convince Mr. Fitz to join the organization for his own protection."

"Fuck!" Captain Rogers was the one to say it, but Jemma was sure everyone else was thinking it.

To be continued


End file.
